The Necklace
by amthyst-fire
Summary: What if ObiWan had kept the necklace that Padmé gave him as she died? Would that small token of Anakin's love be enough to bring him back from the dark side, and learn to love his daughter?
1. The Necklace

**When I started this story, _The Force Unleashed_ had just come out, so this does not have any of those intervening details in them. I have no plans to make this story comply with those stories, just so you know. I am overhauling this because I noticed how horribly it was edited the first time through.**

* * *

Obi-Wan leaned over Padmé and softly spoke to her. "You have twins, Padmé. They need you . . . hang on."

"I can't," she told him. He saddened at the prospect of losing both of them, that Anakin's children would grow up without either of their parents.

She winced again and took Obi-Wan's hand. She held the japor snippet Anakin had given her so many years before.

"Save your energy," Obi-Wan said, trying to sooth her.

"Obi-Wan…there…is good in him. I know there is…still," she told him with her dying breath. Obi-Wan studied the necklace, feeling that it was something of great importance to both her and Anakin.

* * *

There was little time as they decided to split the twins; it seemed the only obvious way to keep them safe. "I will take Anakin's Lightsaber so that Luke can have something of his father when he is old enough. Leia should have something of Padmé's."

Taking the necklace from Obi-Wan, Bail examined it. "I know this cord; no matter what she wore, she was wearing this."

"I don't know what this symbol is, or what this material is, but I feel it is something that was very important to Padmé. She wanted me to have it, to keep it safe, that there was something important about it. Leia should have it when she is old enough."

"I wonder why it was so important to her?" Bail asked absently. "I will keep it safe until Leia is of age."

"Thank you, my friend. I will keep in touch as much as I can."

"I know you will. The Rebellion will need souls such as you."

Obi-Wan nodded. "I do not know how much help I will be. My primary task will be watching over Luke, and the Rebellion must come second to that."

The two parted with their separate charges, knowing that saying any more would only prolong their pain.

* * *

Vader walked into the mausoleum that held his wife's body, looking on her face, knowing that he had been the one to kill her. He rested a mechanical hand on her swollen abdomen, horrified at what he had done. Pain filled him as he looked on her face, and he knew that it was her. There were no doubts anymore. She was gone. He wondered why she was not still wearing her Japor snippet necklace, but he thought perhaps it was because no one had known its importance to her. Had Obi-Wan been there as she died? Had he even tried to save his daughter?

* * *

Leia Organa was dressed and ready for her party., specifically her eighteenth birthday party. She was looking in the mirror, adjusting her hair once again, when her father appeared in the mirror, behind her. "You look perfect, sweetheart."

She turned to face him, and that was when she saw the small box in his hands.

"Daddy," she chided, "I thought we agreed that I didn't need any more jewelry."

"An old friend gave this to me to give to you. It belonged to your mother."

Now curious, she took the box and opened it. Inside was a small piece of something white with a symbol carved into it.

"What is it?"

"We don't really know. I think it was something very important to her."

She pulled the necklace from the box, and as she did, she caught a whiff of perfume, a scent that was both reassuring and unfamiliar.

_My mother's perfume._ She examined the worn cord on which it had been threaded, and said, "She must have worn this often."

"I don't think I ever saw her without it."

"Why won't you ever talk about her?"

"Leia," he said, pleading with her to understand.

"I want to know, Dad. It's not unreasonable."

"I'll think about it," he said finally. It was the closest she had ever gotten to getting any information about her real parents from him.

"I know you said even knowing the names of my parents was dangerous, but I'm an adult now."

He sighed, "Yes, but you are also my daughter, and I will always feel the need to protect you."

"I love you, Dad," she said and handed him the necklace. "Can you put this on me?"

He hesitated, but only for a moment. "Of course," he told her.

* * *

Darth Vader had gotten the strangest impulse. He wanted to attend Viceroy Organa's daughter's eighteenth birthday party. He hadn't done anything simply because the Force wanted him to for years, especially something so life affirming.

He imagined that the only reason he had even received an invitation was that if he hadn't, the fallout wouldn't have been pretty. He had not been there long when the viceroy approached him. "Lord Vader."

"Viceroy," he answered without looking down.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said, carefully neutral.

"I didn't expect to be here. I was unable to return to Coruscant for Empire Day. The _Devastator_ has developed a problem with her hyperdrive."

"If you would like for me to send technicians to take a look at it, I would be happy to see to it."

"That will not be necessary. If the technicians on board have not corrected the problem by the time that I return to the ship, I will see to it myself," he said, glancing down at Bail.

He caught the suspicious look on Bail's face before his Senatorial mask fell back into place. "I forget sometimes how good you are with mechanics."

He settled himself. Whatever suspicions Bail had about his motives, the Emperor would not hear them. "You must feel fortunate that your daughter was born on Empire Day."

"I feel fortunate that she was born at all. I place no great store in the day upon which she was born."

Vader didn't respond; the herald announced the entrance of the Princess. She was dressed in a very low-cut, off-the-shoulder, floor-length dress. His eyes were drawn up almost magnetically to her neckline where she had adorned herself simply, with a single pendant necklace. Even from across the room it looked familiar. Maybe _look_ wasn't quite the correct word, _felt_ was better.

* * *

Leia had very much enjoyed her party. Darth Vader, with whom she'd had very little contact with, ever, had come. He was important, but that didn't keep him from creeping her out.

"Good evening, Princess," he said as she stood on one of the many balconies that were open for that night's party.

She turned to face him, but instead of finding the imposing Emperor's Right Hand, most feared man in the galaxy, she instead found a sad, broken man. There was nothing in his posture to indicate the difference to her; it was something more fundamental. In examining him, she couldn't have said what made her think that; where the line had suddenly and clearly been drawn for her between the man and his job.

The angry retort that would have so easily rolled from her tongue died on her lips. She felt the sudden urge to be gentler with him. "Good evening, my Lord."

Now close enough to her to touch, he reached up tenderly, and lifted the necklace her father had given her just that night. "Where did you get this?"

"It was my mother's," she said, not being particularly good at coming up with lies on the spot.

He was silent for a very long time, contemplating the necklace, running his thumb over the pattern of it. "It was the first gift that your father gave your mother," he said finally. "It is a Japor snippet, carved with a symbol of luck."

"How do you know?" she asked, but by the time she had gotten over the shock of what he'd said, he had left.

She headed out into the main room, knowing somehow that he hadn't gone far. She found him alone on a different balcony. "How did you know what this is?" she asked him, her fingers playing with the necklace, which was much more important to her because of what he had told her.

He didn't answer her, and she knew she wouldn't get an answer that way. "What else do you know about this?"

"The necklace?"

"Yes."

"Your father carved it for your mother when he was four. He didn't know then that was its purpose, but he often did things without knowing what their ultimate purpose was. He was nine when he first met her, and she was fourteen, and the most beautiful creature that he'd ever met. He was a slave, but a very talented boy, and as such was able to, with the help of some of her companions, win his freedom in a race. He was a very good pilot, even then."

"That's why I like to swoop-race," she said, but he didn't really seem to hear her.

"Your mother was a fair pilot herself. Your father's mother was also a slave, but she could not be freed as well, and your father had to leave. It made him very sad to do so; but he knew that he would see her again."

"Did he?"

"Yes, but that is not part of the story of the necklace. He left his home, everything he knew, so that he could go into the greater galaxy. He had his reasons for going then, that I won't go into, but they were good reasons."

"At nine?"

"Yes. Even at nine, your father was walking a path destiny had set out for him. That night when everyone else had gone to sleep, he was still awake, and he was cold, because the planet he had come from was very hot. Your mother helped him through that night, made sure that he stayed warm enough, and that he wasn't frightened by all the strangeness of the ship. He gave her the necklace, for luck. She wore it, I suppose, until she died. I saw her only a few days in the last year before she died."

"Did you know my parents well?"

He looked down at his hands, contemplating something. "Yes, I knew your parents well."

"Tell me about them," she said, and it was a request, from someone who'd always wanted to know something that no one would talk about.

"Your mother was as beautiful as she was intelligent. She was in politics by the time she was your age; that you have followed her in that respect would make her proud. Your father was a damned fool."

"What gives you the right to say that?"

His silence stretched on, but she didn't break it. She waited for him to answer the question. "I am your father."

Gasping in shock, she took a step back from him. He felt even sadder than he had before, when he was talking about her mother, and he left, and this time she knew she wouldn't be able to follow him, to find him.

* * *

Vader returned to his ship. The technicians had just finished performing the tests to ensure that they had found all of the problems with the hyperdrive. He listened to the report, nodding to the messenger once the man was finished, and he hurried back to whatever duties Vader's arrival had interrupted. Tion, the man who currently held the command of his flagship, came up to him after the messenger finished. "Your orders, my Lord?"

"Proceed to Coruscant. This delay will undoubtedly have already put the Emperor in a foul mood. No need to worsen it by delaying further."

"Yes, sir. Is there anything else?"

"I am retiring to my quarters. I do not wish to be disturbed until we reach Coruscant."

"Yes, sir."

With that, the man left. He was at least reasonably competent, unlike some of the other officers he'd been stuck with.

He made his way to his quarters, and entered his hyperbaric chamber. When it was closed, he allowed himself to relax, just a bit, and the bitter tears of having realized that he had lost two decades with his daughter came in a torrent. He sobbed from the obvious evidence that Padmé had at least lived long enough to bring their child into the world. A fire, flashing into raging fullness from the barest embers, burned inside him now. He had a reason to exist once again. He had a goal, a truth to seek out. He had a daughter. After the tears dried, and he'd spent all the energy that his body had to spare to the task, he felt as though a great weight had lifted from his heart, and he slept peacefully for the first time in eighteen years.

* * *

"Daddy," Leia said, entering her father's office on the day after her birthday.

"Yes, Leia?" he asked, without looking up.

"I wanted to ask you something."

"What's that?"

"Do you know who my father is?"

He put his datapad down, and looked at her. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to know."

"Yes, I know who your father is, and he is dead."

A puzzled look crossed her face. "I don't think he is."

"What makes you say that?"

"I was on the balcony last night, and Darth Vader came and talked to me. He told me he was my father."

"Why would you believe something so preposterous?"

She shrugged. "He told me the story of where this necklace came from."

"What did he tell you?" he asked, clearly becoming alarmed.

"He said that he gave it to her when he was nine. He doesn't seem at all like the man who's been terrorizing the galaxy."

Bail was quiet for a long time. "There was a time that your father was a good man, but he turned his back on the good things that he had, and destroyed many, many people, including your mother. The good man that your father was died the day you were born and Darth Vader took his place."

Leia was angry with her father for not seeing that there was possibly another side to Vader. "I don't believe that. There is good inside him still. He still loves my mother very deeply."

"Please, Leia, understand. As much as I would love to believe that you have even one chance in a million to save him from what he has become, he made the choice to be the way that he is. He won't turn into a loving father just because you say so." Bail sighed then continued, "I think its time you met General Kenobi. I want you to go to Tatooine where he has made his home. He'll be expecting you."

Shocked that her father was sending her away like a disobedient child, she left, and didn't speak with him again for the rest of the day.

* * *

Vader woke feeling rested, like he hadn't felt since before the Clone Wars. They were nearly to Coruscant, not there yet, or someone would have woken him. He took the time to carefully bury the freshly dug up emotions that his meeting with his daughter had provoked. It would not do to have the Emperor finding that he'd been thinking about his family; or worse, finding out about Leia. The heat of passion and the desperation of a young man who thought he was about to lose everything he loved had driven him into being a Sith, but he was not that person any longer. Lies had been the foundational stones for everything that Palpatine had built inside him, and they were shored up only with the thinnest rods of truth, and now those lies were being exposed, and crumbling to the touch, and the truths underneath were not nearly enough to keep him under the Emperor's thumb for much longer. Desperation had led him into slavery once again.

Realization that he had in fact, sold himself back into slavery stopped him cold. When he had been nine, there had been little that he could have done by himself to alleviate the situation, though in his weakened state, there might be little that he could do now. He activated the mechanism to lower his mask, and return him to his status as the Menace of the Galaxy.

After leaving his quarters, he went to the bridge, where Tion was still commanding, having apparently not gone to bed. "How long until we arrive?"

"My Lord," he said, straightening formally. "We expect to revert in ten minutes."

Vader nodded, but made no comment. He stood unmoving, sorting through what he planned to say to the Emperor. Somehow, after meeting his daughter, she had become infinitely more important than the whims of Palpatine.

* * *

Leia looked out of the front window of the _Tantive IV,_ wondering again what this General Kenobi could tell her that her father thought he couldn't. He had served with her father in the Clone Wars; that much she knew, but she knew little to nothing else about the man. Captain Antilles had come with her to pilot. Not that she couldn't do it herself, but her father had sent him as both protection for her and to ensure that she actually arrived at the destination he had set for her.

They landed in a small bay that hardly qualified as such, but Tatooine was such a small, poorly funded place that it must be all that they could do to keep the spaceport that they had together. Her father had arranged for the transportation from where they were landing in Mos Eisley to another town, Anchorhead, which was closer to her destination. She would need to find her own way in from there, or General Kenobi would find her. She wasn't really sure on the details. She and R2-D2 got into the speeder and headed off, the being driving her to the edge of the specified town, and said, "Here is the place."

She got out, and the driver left. His payment was coming from her father, not her. She pulled the hood of her overshirt over her hair, and used it to partially obscure her face. Somehow she missed the boy crossing her path and ran into him, much to the amusement of several youth gathered in the shelter of the adjoining building. "Sorry," he said, running his hand through his sun-bleached blond hair.

"Hey, Wormie, you got a girlfriend now?" one of them called.

He closed his eyes, obviously wrestling a nasty retort down. "No, Fixer, just a girl," he called over his shoulder. "Are you ok?" he asked her. His blue eyes were kind, and they flashed with the same kind of inner fire that she had. She liked him instantly.

"I'm fine. I'm meeting an old friend of my father's."

"Really? Who?" he asked her quietly. She was sure it was so that his friends couldn't hear.

"Ben Kenobi."

"Old Ben?"

"Well, I don't know how old he is, but probably."

"He lives in the Wastes. That's a dangerous place. You shouldn't go there by yourself."

"I have R2 with me," she said, somewhat defensively. She didn't understand why she wanted to tell him what was going on, to share with him, now only moments after having met him. She shook her head, not understanding, but accepting it because it felt so right.

"I'll take you out there. I know where he lives." She nodded, somehow trusting that he wouldn't lead her astray. "Hey, what's your name? I'll introduce you to everybody."

"Leia, but your name can't be Wormie, can it?"

"Luke," he said, and he turned around, indicating his friends in turn. "This is Fixer, Camie, Tank, and Biggs. Everybody, this is Leia."

"Hello," she said, somewhat more shyly than she ordinarily did.

"Took your time introducing her to us, didn't you, Wormie?" the one he'd called Fixer said.

"Some things take longer than others, Fixer," he said, and glanced up at the chronometer, and frowned. "Like this. I have to get home. Uncle Owen wants me to go over the vaporators on the west ridge tonight."

"Your uncle works you too hard." Tank said, "Are you still going to the Academy next year with us?"

"I don't know. I think I've talked Uncle Owen into it."

"Let's hope he stays talked into it." Biggs said, clapping him on the back.

Luke returned the gesture after a fashion, and she departed with him. Before they'd gotten too far, they ran into a hooded figure. "I see you found the only interesting person on this planet, Princess."

"Old Ben, we were just coming to see you," Luke said before she could answer.

"Go home. Your uncle would not like that you have been cavorting with me. You know that," Ben said. She thought he seemed quite irritated with something.

Luke looked upset, but he relented. "But Ben," he started, but she knew it was a last ditch effort that he didn't expect to work.

"Life catches you up quickly enough, young Luke. Do not be too anxious for adventure. It will find you soon enough," he said, placing his arm around the boy's shoulder. Luke sighed, and got into the speeder, heading off. "Now, Leia, your father said something that warrants some discussion. Let's go," he said, turning stern, and the difference was not lost on her. In his eyes, she'd done something that, if not wrong, at least had been dangerously reckless.

They walked in silence to where he had a beast of some sort that he seemed intent on riding out to his home. "You've got to be kidding," she said as they approached the huge beast.

"You have gotten yourself into this, Leia. Come along."

Scowling, she got up on the beast, which she later learned was called an Eopie.

* * *

Vader walked into Palpatine's throne room. "Lord Vader, it is good to see you, my friend."

"Thank you, my Lord, it is good to find you well."

"You could not attend the Empire Day Celebrations here on Coruscant."

"No, my Master, I could not. At our last transition, Alderaan, the hyperdrive of the _Devastator_ developed a severe leak. That, unfortunately, delayed us for a full day while repairs were made."

"I see. You didn't notice this problem until it was critical?"

"The problem had been noted on at least one report; it was scheduled to be replaced while we were docked here on Coruscant."

"How strange. Do you not ensure that such things are taken care of early?"

"Yes, my Lord. This was an unexpected catastrophic failure."

"Interesting. You might want to check for Rebel saboteurs," Palpatine said in his oily voice. Vader found himself irritated that his 'Master' would think it was necessary to remind him of such trivial matters. His thoughts started to turn to his new-found daughter. He clamped down harder on them.

"Do not presume to hide your feelings from me, Lord Vader," Palpatine said. Vader fought not to give any reaction, and barely won the battle. "I know my suggestion annoyed you, just know that MY master would've been far crueler and far less accepting of your lateness. Especially since I had planned a special announcement this Empire Day that you spoiled."

"How did my absence spoil your plans, Master?"

"Simple, I was going to announce your upcoming wedding," Palpatine said, a small, evil smile formed on his worn, leathered face. Vader's outrage at such a statement flew out in all directions before he regained control.

"Why was I not informed of these…proceedings?" Vader asked, spitting out the words.

"I wanted it to be a surprise, my friend. You've shown no interest in women at all since that unfortunate business with your first wife. I am concerned that you haven't moved past it all. My friend, you must look to the future."

It took all of Vader's considerable control to keep from striking at his sovereign. He wasn't ready to start that fight, as damaged and old as Palpatine was he was far from helpless, and Vader was uniquely vulnerable to Palpatine's favorite weapon. Instead, he asked, very slowly, "Who is to be my bride, my Master?"

"The Countess Vesenj from Cormoron,; she just came of age and her father asked if you were seeking a bride. I of course hadn't considered the possibility until he mentioned it and I do want to see you happy, my friend."

_Yeah right, you rotting fossil, _the thought came unbidden and sounded far more like his former self than the Sith Apprentice he was supposed to be. Vader stood impassively waiting, hoping Palpatine didn't pick up on the errant thought, but Palpatine said nothing about it.

"It is … unfortunate you were unable to make the announcement, Master," Vader said.

"I made it anyway, my friend. In fact, you have a date for tonight with the good Countess," Palpatine said, the evil grin growing wider.

"I understand, Master," Vader said.

"Good, I'll have the royal tailor meet you to fashion you something suitably…festive. You are dismissed."

"Yes, Master." Vader said, and left. He was really annoyed. He briefly toyed with the idea of simply killing the Countess on a whim, but decided it wasn't her fault. This was all Palpatine's doing, trying to gain even more control over his apprentice. This was going to be a long evening.


	2. My Brother

**AN: Here is the next installment. I hope this lives up to expectations. Thanks everyone for your kind reviews. Vader is getting tortured again in this chapter, so that should prove interesting. We will see where, if anywhere, this leads. Have fun reading this chapter!**

* * *

Leia sat in the small hovel that General Kenobi had made into his home. She was not above doing so; her father had taught her that there was an equality between people that ran deeper than the amount of money a person had. There was also the fact that her father respected him, but that didn't mean that she had to like being on a backwater planet with a strange old man. "What did my father tell you, General?"

He waved the title off. "Please, call me Ben. I have not been a General for eighteen years. Now, as for what your father said, it was simply that Vader knows who you are. He is very afraid for you, I think."

"But Vader wouldn't hurt me. I know he wouldn't."

"What makes you think that?" he asked her, his face unreadable.

"I can feel it. I don't know how, but I can.," she said. She felt the need to elaborate, so she added, "He's just not like that. I've seen some of the things that they say about him on the HoloNet, but it's almost like there's someone else that I'm talking to when I talk to him, someone who's broken, who's been hurt very badly by life, not the monster he's been made out to be. I think I can fix him, and I want to try."

"He's done very bad things, Leia," Ben said, but he seemed sad, and almost like he was reciting something that he didn't precisely believe.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "What kind of very bad things are you talking about?"

"He killed every Jedi in the Temple, and has hunted down and killed every Jedi he could find afterward." Leia felt that there was more to it, more that he wasn't telling her, but she let it drop for the moment.

"Why did he do that?"

"I don't know. He changed drastically when he became a Sith."

"So he was a Jedi, like you, before?"

"Yes, but the man that could have been a loving father to you died, I think. I think Mustafar killed your father, if he wasn't already dead."

"Did you ask him why he was doing what he was doing?"

Ben looked down. "No."

"So are you going to try to talk me out of trying to save him?"

He was silent for some time, not looking at her, mostly just staring off into space. Finally she saw him nod. "I think that is what your father wants. That is why he sent you here. Bail is afraid for you, and what it could mean for you and the rest of the galaxy if Vader knows who you are. I would have to see Vader in person to be able to truly assess your evaluation of the situation."

"So, did you want to go see him?" Leia asked, seeing that as the easiest resolution of the problem.

"I think it is a little too early for that, unfortunately," he was quiet for a long moment. "Since you are here instead of having been kidnapped or some other torture, which is what I would have expected, I think that I will trust your judgment."

"Will you help me, or can you?"

"Well, I actually need your help. I came to Tatooine in particular for one reason. I am here to watch over Luke."

"Luke?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes. He's a very special boy. Unfortunately Owen has to be the most stubborn being I've ever met and that includes your father and mother."

"His Uncle?"

He sighed, looking into her eyes with a sadness that seemed to go to the depth of his soul. He took her arm, and said to her, "Yes. This will probably be very hard for you to hear, Leia, but Owen is your uncle as well. Luke is your brother. You are twins. We separated you to protect you from Vader and by extension, the Emperor."

Tears welled up in her eyes as the hole she had always felt, but had been completely unable to explain to anyone suddenly had an answer.

She was unable to speak, so Obi-Wan continued, "I will help you as much as it is possible for me to do so from here, but I think your instincts will be of much better help on this issue. Trust your feelings."

"So what kind of help do you need from me?"

"Well, as I said, Owen is a very stubborn man. He doesn't like me, and has not really ever liked me ever. Some of that is my fault, I admit, but I believe that it is mostly his fear that Luke will become like his father is now. Owen never really got to know his step-brother, not before he turned, at least, and now the only thing he knows is what is put out over the HoloNet. Right now the problem is that Luke needs to be trained in the way of the Jedi. I should have been doing this all along, but I have not tried to come between Luke and Owen. They do that enough themselves."

"And you are the only one around here who can train Luke?" she concluded.

"Yes. The Jedi Order was a very important part of the stability of the Old Republic," he reminded her.

"So when we defeat the Empire, we will need new Jedi to help," she said, catching on to where Ben was going.

"Yes. I also think that the more trained Jedi that are available to help defeat the Emperor, the better."

"You were going to send him up against his father first, weren't you?" she asked, the sudden insight hitting her.

"That was not _my_ plan, but yes, that was _the_ plan," he said sadly.

"Did you really think it would work?"

He laughed a little, "No, I really didn't, but I couldn't think of something better, and still haven't been able to. But you may make the point moot."

"By convincing him to turn away from the dark side?"

"Yes. If you are able to do that, then the Empire will most certainly take a fatal blow. It may be that Anakin would deal that blow himself."

"Anakin?"

"Anakin is the true name of your father."

"I like it."

"Well, I'm sure that he would be happy to hear that."

"I don't know. He doesn't seem like a very happy person," she said, and when Ben had no answer for her, she asked, "What is my mother's name?"

"Padmé."

"Padmé Amidala?"

"The same. Your father has told you some things about your mother, hasn't he?"

"Yes, I've learned a lot about her, but never that she was my mother," she paused as she remembered something else, "Wasn't she pregnant when she died?"

"It was arranged so that she seemed so, but no, you and Luke were born before she died."

"So, she was from Naboo, right?"

"Yes."

"Do we have relatives there?"

"I'm sure Padmé's family still lives there, but the last time I had any contact with Naboo was less than a week after you were born. At the time, both of Padmé's parents, her sister and her sister's two children were there. If the information that I have gotten in the time since then is correct, you have at least an aunt that is still alive, and at least your two cousins. Unfortunately Master Yoda would not blend in as well on Naboo as I do here, so I do not know how your family has faired."

"I thought you said…what do I call him even? I don't feel comfortable calling him Father…"

"I understand, Leia. I have wrestled with the same question myself over the years."

"You knew him very well, didn't you?" Leia said, but it was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, I did. He was my Padawan. He was also the greatest friend anyone could ask for. He was my brother, not by birth, but by everything that matters," the pain of the memories was evident in the old warrior's voice.

"You fought him, didn't you?"

"Yes I did, it is not a memory that I relish. I doubt he does either, considering what happened."

"What happened?" Leia asked.

"It was at the end of the Clone Wars, and after he had slaughtered the Jedi at the Temple. My guess is that the Emperor sent him to Mustafar to eliminate the leadership of the CIS. The history that Palpatine puts out doesn't refute this; I guess he sees no harm in everyone knowing Vader is the one that killed them. Anyway, I had to find him. I had hoped to reason with him and bring him back from the darkness, but when I saw him, he had changed. There was nothing left of the Anakin I knew, at least not in that moment; he wasn't himself. It's a wonder either of us survived that fight," Obi Wan said, the sadness coming off of him in waves. Leia felt compelled to hug him.

"You don't need to continue if you don't want to," she said.

"You deserve to know this tale, Leia, both you and Luke do," the old Jedi Master said.

"Then we'll go and you can tell both of us. That way you only need to tell it once."

"You are very kind, your parents would be very proud of you."

"What is our last name?"

"Skywalker. But you must promise never to even think that when you in the presence of the Emperor, and not to speak it anywhere other than Tatooine."

"Why?"

"In all the records that I have ever researched the name Skywalker only appears for two people; Anakin and Shmi."

"What about Luke?"

"There are no records that have Luke's name on them. He wasn't even sent to school; he was educated at home."

"So can we go see my brother?"

"Yes, young one," he said, pulling a cloak off the wall and putting it on.

* * *

Vader endured the tailoring for his 'date.' When the tailor had finished, he found no perceptible difference in the cape that he was given and the one he had previously worn. "Are you finished?" 

"Yes, my Lord, your new clothing will be ready within the hour."

Nearly growling in frustration, he stormed off into another part of the Palace where he could practice with his Lightsaber. An interesting idea hit him as he reached the practice arena. He hadn't practiced his lower forms in a very long time; and that had been, a very long time ago, soothing, if he could work up the patience to do them. Shii-Cho, Makashi, and Soresu were things he had to put his full concentration on to do them properly. It required him to slow his mind, something he was generally loathe to do, but today it felt like he needed it. Pressing his emotional turmoil away, he found that he could concentrate easily on the individual moves, moves he had learned so very long ago, when there had been another he had called Master.

* * *

Obi-Wan, though he'd long since abandoned the name, walked up to the Lars homestead, with Leia in tow, and R2 trundling along beside them. He knocked politely on the door, and was greeted by Owen Lars. "What do you want?" Owen asked gruffly. 

"I thought it time that Luke met his sister. She came to seek my advice on a matter of some importance, and wishes to see her brother."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Owen said.

"Owen Lars, you will not ruin this for him," Beru said. He visibly wilted in the face of his wife's wrath.

"I only want what's best for the boy."

"As do I. You know how much he's wanted a family, a real family."

"We are a real family," Owen protested.

"Yes, but he's a grown man now. You can't keep him locked away on the farm forever. He's got too much of his father in him,." Beru said, and it was apparent that this was an old fight, one that he hadn't known about, but that wasn't unusual. Luke, he knew, had talked of going to the Academy, which wouldn't have been permitted, but Owen wasn't about to explain to Luke the whys of it.

Owen sighed, relenting finally. "That is what I'm afraid of," he sighed again and continued, "He's out on the south ridge. Vaporators out there been acting up, but I want your word Kenobi, that he will not turn out like his father."

"Luke is the one that has to make that choice, or not to make it, depending on your point- of- view. The only thing I can promise is to give him the knowledge he needs to make the correct choice," Obi-Wan said.

"Since I seem to have no choice, I'll trust you on this. When will you leave with him?" Owen asked.

"Thank you, Owen. I will do everything in my power to earn the trust you are forced to place in me. As for taking him away, not for a while, he has much to learn first and Tatooine is still safe enough," Ben said, and he and Leia walked out to the south ridge, where Luke was looking at the innards of one of the many vaporators scattered about the ridge. "What seems to be the problem with this vaporator, Luke?"

"Ah, oh, hi, Ben. It's just been acting up. Don't really know what's wrong."

"Well, why don't you let Old Ben take a look at it while you and Leia have a chat.chat? She has something to tell you," he said, and watched the revelation bring a nearly identical expression to his face as the one Leia had had earlier.

He watched as they looked at each other in this new light, and he used the Force to find the problem with the vaporator. It wasn't long before they were chatting up a storm, trying to figure out everything about each other. He found the vaporator's problem; a loose belt, which was an easy enough fix, and he thanked the Force that Anakin had taught him how to talk to machines all those years ago.

* * *

Vader was very unhappy. Apparently the Emperor's idea of 'something festive' meant that he was turned into the most grotesque display of opulence he could remember ever having to endure seeing. All of his outer armor, usually simply black, functional, but by no means beautiful had been replaced by non-functional gaudy pieces. Some of it was material that itched like crazy, and some of the harder pieces were hammered metal. His face mask was the only piece that had not been replaced. All of it was GOLD. He felt like he'd been made over into the image of a protocol droid. 

He had been given specific instructions by Palpatine as the…'outfit'…was applied to his person. He was to pick up the Countess at her apartment. The media had been alerted to the event. They had been told to give the couple some distance, but the Emperor couldn't be responsible for what they considered a respectable distance. He was to at least tolerate them. The dinner reservations were at some exclusive restaurant, and Vader had been given directions to it.

So, unless one of the many people around gave him an excuse, he would not be killing anyone tonight, his typical response to the level of frustration that he was feeling at that moment. He pushed thoughts of the death of others away into a corner of his mind as he arrived at the building that the Countess had set up residence in. He was happy to see that it was not the same building that he and Padmé had lived in when they were married. It would have been too hard to go into that building again. He rang the door chime, and she opened the door. She was obviously nervous, not quite terrified of him, but close. It was worse than what he had felt on the day when he was nineteen; riding up the elevator in Padmé's building, having not seen her in ten years.

He examined her closely as they went to the resteraunt. She was very young, and she let her nervousness show in small ways that if she had been a bit older, she probably would have been able to control. Her hair was blonde, long and straight, and she was taller, thin and lithe. She would have made a good dancer, had she had that inclination. He wouldn't have called her beautiful,; she did not meet his definition for that.

She was…aesthetically pleasing, he decided as they sat down at the table that had been reserved for them. Properly proportioned, maybe, but that was all. It was like looking at a piece of art in Palpatine's Palace. It might please the eye, but it didn't move the heart. The waterfalls of Naboo, those moved the heart. Seeing joy on his daughter's face, that could move his heart. He realized then that his mind had wondered, and she was waiting for him to answer her. "I'm sorry, what?" he said.

"I said, did you want something to eat?"

"No. I will not be eating here."

"Then why did we come here?"

"Because the Emperor ordered it," he answered as though it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"Why would he do that?"

"Because he is not a nice person. You have met him, have you not?"

She shuddered. "Yes. I suppose he isn't really someone I would care to get to know any better. You are sure you can't eat?"

"Quite sure. You may have whatever you like."

"I'm not sure I feel comfortable eating in front of you."

"I am not comfortable with this whole arrangement, but here we are, and we must make the best of the situation."

She looked at him unhappily, mirroring his own internal conflict. "Alright," she agreed quietly. The waiter came and she ordered. She ate, awkward small talk punctuating the silence at odd moments.

The time that they were to leave finally came. "I will escort you home," he said. She nodded, and they left the restaurant.

The flashes of light from the still holocameras nearly blinded him as they exited, but he was fortunate enough to have the Force to allow him to know what was going on. He felt the Countess's grasp on his arm tighten as he led her through the paparazzi. He could force a pathway through the media, but it wasn't really worth it. He'd been told to play nice, so he couldn't just barge through them. "Lord Vader!" one of them shouted, and he focused his attention on the person who had tried to gain it. "Could you pose for us?" the same voice rang in his ears again.

"No," he said with authority.

"Just one pose," the human persisted, getting directly in their way.

"No. Move," he ordered. The apparently quite stupid human just stood in the way, trying to get a 'good' holo for his paper. "I don't want to pose for your paper. Get out of my way," he informed the man again, as he wasn't moving on his own.

The reporter kept taking pictures, doggedly failing to listen to Vader's repeated warnings. Vader had finally had enough, and he picked the man up by the throat. "Oh, this is great," the man said, trying to take a picture of the scene. Vader tightened his grip until he felt the lifeforce of the man slip away, then he threw the body into the assembled crowd of reporters, and led the Countess of Cormoron out of the area, and home. She was quiet on the trip, having nothing to say about the death of the unfortunate reporter. He wished he could tell her that it had been necessary, or an accident, a fit of temper, something other than simply his own enjoyment of destroying something that annoyed him. It was the first time in a long time that he felt much of anything after the death of someone at his hand. _What would Padmé think?_ he kept asking himself. _What would Leia think?_

He escorted the Countess to the door of her apartment. "When will I see you again?"

"When the Emperor deems it necessary," he informed her. "I will inform you of his wishes when he tells me."

"Well, then I suppose that this is goodbye," she said, her nervousness at his very presence quite plain to him.

"Yes, goodbye," he said, turning on his heel and leaving.

* * *

Leia was as happy as she'd ever been. Luke wanted to come with her to Alderaan, and later to Coruscant when she would be going to serve in the Senate, but Senate wouldn't convene until later on in the year. Ben had nixed the idea almost immediately, which disappointed Luke, and her as well. Luke had suggested that they go up to Toshi station again, and Ben had warned them that they needed to be careful, and that even here on the Outer Rim, they shouldn't disclose their relationship. The dinner with Owen and Beru the night before had been strained at best, and almost ended in blows between Owen and Ben. The situation had diffused, thankfully, but the house hadn't cleared of the brooding mood yet. 

As they entered Toshi station, Fixer and Camie were already there, and there were two additions to the group. "Deak, Windy. Good to see you guys." Luke said.

"And who is this?" Deak asked him, taking her hand.

"Leia. She's only here for a couple of days, so don't get your hopes up."

Luke plopped down in a fat, comfortable chair, and motioned for her to join him. She snuggled up in the chair with him, and watched her brother's friends as they sat and talked. He had put his hat nearly over his eyes, and his eyes were nearly shut, but she could feel the underlying tension in him. He was not sure how his friends would react to her, and he wanted to protect her. He had only just found her, and there was no way he was letting her get away. It was almost sweet.

"Hey, Wormie, you going racing tomorrow up at Beggar's Canyon?" Fixer asked.

"No, I have other stuff to do tomorrow," Luke answered without looking up.

"Aw, come on, it'll be fun. Even Gorm's gonna be there." Deak chimed in.

"No can do," Luke said firmly.

"What could be more important than racing to you?" Windy asked.

"Yeah, are ya sick or something?" Camie asked.

"I'm fine. I just think I'll pass on it," Luke said. The real reason that he wasn't going was that he would be seeing her off that afternoon.

Biggs walked in then, and for some reason Leia's heart started to race just a bit. "Good morning, all," he said.

"Good morning," she chimed in with the rest of the crew.

"Well, Leia, it seems you have accomplished a feat most thought impossible. You have pried Luke away from his farm two days in a row," Biggs said to her, his gaze drawing hers.

"It wasn't that hard," she said, blushing just a bit.

"Well, you must have some power that we don't because it's like pulling teeth to get him out here, ever. Then you show up, and he's out here two days running," Biggs continued.

"Leave her be, Biggs," Luke piped up finally. "She didn't come here to get the third degree from you. We are here to get away from that. Uncle Owen is in a mood today."

"So you still coming to the Academy with us this year?" Biggs asked, dropping the subject.

"I'll think about it. I have other things to do between now and then. Maybe," Luke answered evasively. Ben's promise to teach him to be a Jedi was apparently more interesting to her brother than flying, though he'd checked to see if Ben thought that he could learn some more piloting skills while he was in training. Ben had agreed that the idea would be a good one.

"That's a change. I thought you wanted to be the hottest pilot in the Academy," Biggs said, sounding more than a little confused.

"Things change," Luke said. Biggs seemed to finally notice that Leia was quite firmly attached to her brother, and since he didn't know that particular fact, the position that they were in could look at least not quite chaste.

"I'm sure Luke has a good reason not to attend the Academy," Leia said, trying to dissuade any notions that Biggs had about the two of them.

"And what might that reason be?" Biggs asked.

"Uncle Owen needs me here. Family is more important than the Academy," Luke said.

"Leia has nothing to do with you wanting to stay here?" Biggs asked suspiciously.

She shrugged. "I am going to Coruscant. I have a job there. I can't stay here more than another day."

"And if you have a job _there_, why did you come to the ends of the galaxy?"

"I had some things to take care of," she said, fiddling with her necklace.

"Where'd you get that?" Biggs asked her, taking the pendant from her fingers so he could look at it.

"It was my mother's."

"Japor snippet?" he asked. She nodded. "Common enough around here. Your family from here?"

She nodded again. "My father. He was the one that gave this to her."

Biggs turned his attention back to Luke. "Your uncle know that you're up here with her?"

"Yes, he does. He doesn't have much choice in the matter. Aunt Beru is all for it."

Everyone laughed; apparently the fact that Aunt Beru wore the pants in that house had not escaped Luke's friends. "Well, then we have to give you a proper send off party, little lady." Biggs said. He hustled the rest of the group out the door, leaving the two of them alone.

Luke shifted, then his fingers found the necklace she and Biggs had been discussing. "This really belonged to Mom?"

She nodded. "Dad—Bail—gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. I don't know how long he had it before that. Maybe Ben knows. He and Dad knew each other before we were born."

"Maybe Ben can tell us more about our family.," Luke said. "Uncle Owen doesn't talk about Dad at all, he mostly just talks about Grandma."

"I hope he will. Dad knows much more than he wants to let on."

"So what's this job you have on Coruscant that's going to take you away from me when I just found you yesterday?"

"I was elected Senator of Alderaan three weeks ago. Dad didn't want to do it anymore, and I was going to be old enough to be Senator by the time that the swearing in came around, so I ran for the office. And you didn't find me, I found you. I was the one that got dragged half-way across the galaxy to come to this Force-forsaken planet."

He looked like he was going to say something about her assessment, but then thought better of it. "You're going to have to be careful, if what Ben was telling us is right."

"It's not going to be all that bad. I think I have to meet the Emperor once, but after that, we'll just have to see if we can make things work to our advantage."

* * *

Vader went to the Palace; he'd been summoned, probably, so that the Emperor could torture him with the details of the previous night. "What is thy bidding, my Master?" he asked as he knelt on the floor before the throne. 

"Tell me about your date. I wish to know every detail."

Suppressing the urge to throttle the man in his chair, Vader began recounting his night. "She is very young."

"Yes, I told you that she had just come of age."

"She is pleasant enough."

"Could you see spending the rest of your life with her?"

"I could tolerate her without killing her, if that is your question, my Master."

"Very well, my friend. We will begin arrangements for your wedding immediately. You will need to stay on Coruscant for the duration of this, but perhaps you could send your fleet out in search of Rebels without you?"

"As you wish."

"You are dismissed. You will arrange to see the Countess tonight. I expect you to report back to me in the morning as to how your relationship is progressing," Vader didn't bother responding; Palpatine had already moved on to another topic.

Ben helped as the three of them located Leia's ship. They got Leia on board with little difficulty; apparently Captain Antilles had dissuaded the local populace from attempting anything on the ship. "Oh, Miss Leia, I was so worried about you."

"Thank you, Threepio. This is Ben, and this is Luke. Can you go tell Captain Antilles that we should be ready in about ten minutes?" Leia asked, and the sadness in her voice was palpable.

"Oh, certainly," the droid said, and left.

"I don't know why we've kept him all these years. He's so eccentric."

"That would be because your father built him," Ben answered her.

"Daddy doesn't know anything about droids," she said, confused.

"Not Bail, Anakin. He was always quite bright. C-3PO was built before he left Tatooine."

"Wait, you said that he was nine when he left Tatooine," Luke interjected.

"So he was. He also won the…Boonta Eve Classic I think it was called, when he was nine." Ben said. Leia looked confused, Luke looked stunned, both of them stared at the aged Jedi Master as the hints of a mischievous grin showed on his bearded face.


	3. Coruscant

**AN: Here is (finally) the third chapter of this story.**

**Elusive Maverick:I think something like that is likely, but I'm not quite sure yet how to weave it in to the rest of the story. We shall see.**

* * *

In the week since the eighteenth anniversary of the inception of the Empire Vader had been required to attend various functions that the Emperor put on for the holiday. The Emperor usually didn't force such things on his apprentice, but it was his prerogative to do so. So Vader and the Countess attended state functions that Vader wouldn't have been caught dead at, had he been given a choice. She seemed to enjoy them, fortunately. At least one of them was having some amount of pleasure from being forced to exhibit themselves in public. He told the Emperor that the Countess wanted to spend some time alone with him. It wasn't true, but the Emperor didn't care. He was ordered to spend the evening with her, since she had requested it. Vader didn't really care either way at that moment, because it meant that he was out of the media spotlight.

So he was standing at her door. He rang the chime, and she opened it. "I thought you said last night that we weren't going out tonight."

"We aren't," he said looking over the clothes she was sporting, and found that they were much more casual than what she typically wore. "I told the Emperor that you wanted to spend the night in. He assumed that you wanted to spend it with me."

She shook her head, and moved out of the way so that he could come inside. "I have some work that I was planning to do."

"I brought work with me so that I wouldn't bother you," he said, and she nodded. Her distress from his presence had lessened considerably. He thought it probably had something to do with his social awkwardness. It was something that she could latch onto, to make herself believe that there really was a person behind the mask. He sat, and started to go over the figures listed on the datapad that he had brought. It was a report that Tion had sent him, the search for Rebel saboteurs had proved fruitless. Tion hadn't been particularly thorough, but he hadn't needed to be. There were no Rebel saboteurs, and there was also no evidence that the hyperdrive had been tampered with. The fact that it had been would just have to remain his little secret. He also had Tion's monthly report, a long detailed thing that would usually bore him to tears, and he avoided reading them if there was any choice in the matter, but he now had to, because he wasn't with the fleet, but being in the Countess's apartment gave him reason to want to avoid conversation.

* * *

Leia was shocked by the news. The Emperor had announced that Vader was to be married. He had done it on her birthday, when Vader was at her party, rather than on Coruscant where he probably ought to have been. She wondered about the motives of the Emperor, having done that. Vader, according to what she knew of him—which she had to admit to herself if no one else, was very little, in all reality—had no desire to get over his love of her mother. She might even go so far as to say it seemed like a source of strength for him. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind enough so that she could concentrate on her task, which was unpacking her things in her new apartment on Coruscant. The time she spent on Tatooine, learning a bit about her father, though Ben wouldn't talk much about her mother, had been both a much needed and welcome getaway, and a sadly sweet time, for when she had to come home, she had to leave her brother.

She turned the HoloNet off; it was only feeding her trash, right when she didn't need anything else to think about. The door chimed and she extracted herself from the boxes, and went to answer it.

Vader was on the other side of the door. "Are you too busy to see me?"

"No, no, I was just unpacking. Nothing that can't wait for a little bit."

"I was a bit abrupt when I left the other day. I wanted to apologize, and explain."

"Certainly," she said as he came in. She showed him to the one clear sofa in the room; the other two were still piled with boxes. "Please, sit," she said, and he did.

He was quiet for a handful of moments, and then he said, "I think you deserve the truth of your birth, your existence, your parentage."

"You don't need to talk about it," she started, but he cut her off.

"I do need to talk about it. You need to know who I am," he said. She was quiet, letting him say what he felt he needed to tell her. "I have already told you how I got off Tatooine, how your mother was kind to me, even though she was young and scared herself. Naboo was under attack at that time, and she was Queen. She was always such an amazing person. From what I've seen, you are really a lot like her. I went to the Jedi Temple, where I was tested to see if they thought I would make a good Jedi; I was rejected. I had formed too many attachments, and I was afraid."

"Master Qui-Gon said that I would be trained anyway. He was always going against the wishes of the Council, much to the consternation of his Padawan. I sometimes think that I frustrated him simply by being so much like Qui-Gon, who was a student of the Living Force. I never learned too much about it, but I think I would have liked it. Do you know the story of how Palpatine was elected Chancellor?"

"Yes, Dad made sure that I knew the truth, with no ambiguities, and no leanings one way or the other. I even watched some of the actual Senate Holos."

He nodded. "While I was being evaluated to test my fitness to become a Jedi, she was doing that. I didn't know that she was queen at the time, but it didn't matter. She asked Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan," he said, but he faltered over the second name somewhat, "to go back to Naboo with her. Qui-Gon told me that I could come as well, and so I did. He told me that even though I was not being trained yet, that I was to watch everything, and learn. Naboo was still overrun with droids, Padmé appealed to the Gungans, a warrior race that shared the planet with the Naboo. Together, they led a march against the droid army, and I ended up in the cockpit of a fighter."

He chucked softly. "Qui-Gon told me to stay put. I don't think he knew what he was in for. I started pressing buttons, naturally curious, and the auto-pilot engaged, and by that time, R2 had settled himself into the ship as well. We started off into space, and ended up actually on the droid control ship. I blasted the main core of the ship, and high-tailed it out of there. While I was doing that, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were fighting a Sith, Darth Maul. He killed Master Qui-Gon, and in turn, Obi-Wan killed him. He was Knighted shortly thereafter, and he took me as his Padawan, as Qui-Gon had requested him to do with his dying breath. I can't help but thing that we both would have been better off if we'd had Qui-Gon around."

"I became friends with Palpatine. Obi-Wan was not a particularly demonstrative person. He's much quieter than I am, and I didn't think he understood me. I spent ten years in a tug-of-war between the two of them. I think the only one who had much of a clue as to what was going on with me was Palpatine. It was then, ten years into my training and a year or so before I was Knighted that I met your mother again. She had by that time served out the two terms permitted by Naboo's constitution, and had become a Senator herself on the request of the new Queen. Her life was in danger; she was outspoken, strong-willed, and brazen. People didn't like her because she was like a magnet. She was articulate enough that people understood her points, and she was kind enough that people responded to her. It was amazing to watch her work a room."

He was quiet for a little bit, and she was sure that if she could have seen his face, there would have been tears shining in his eyes, if not outright falling on his cheeks. "We were sent to Naboo while Obi-Wan gathered evidence of her assassins. Varykino is beautiful, and I think that the atmosphere of the place had as much to do with us being in love as the chemistry that we'd had since the first time we'd laid eyes on each other."

"So you fell in love on Naboo?"

"Well, I think we fell in love long before that, but that was where we first were able to admit it to one another. We went to Tatooine against the wishes of the Council and of Obi-Wan. I was having dreams, nightmares really, of my mother dying. I wanted to help her, I couldn't stand that she was suffering, and I was being held back in the dream. There was nothing that I could do. I was suffering, and she couldn't take it, so she convinced me to go to Tatooine. I found the Toydarian who had given me my freedom, by way of a crafty Jedi. It took him a little while to recognize me, but he eventually did, and he told me that he had sold her to a moisture farmer, Cliegg Lars, and that he had freed her, and married her. I got the coordinates of the farm and went out there to see them. I found Lars there without her, but Threepio was still there, and in the Lars's possession. He had a son, Owen, I believe his name is," he stopped for a moment, switching into a more painful part of his story, "Mom had been taken by Tuskan Raiders, and she was held prisoner and tortured. I felt her pain from Coruscant, and it gave me nightmares for weeks. She died in my arms, and I killed them for it. I killed all of them."

She said nothing, having heard something to that effect from Owen. There was a place on Tatooine that reeked of her father's darkness from the moment he had just described to her, and though she hadn't personally been out there, she knew neither Owen nor Obi-Wan liked the place. It wasn't actually attributed to him by either of them, but she knew somehow that the two things were connected. "I think that was a major turning point for me. I was young and naïve. I never told Obi-Wan what happened, and he never asked. I guess that he thought I would come to him if it was bothering me. I went to Palpatine, and he was understanding, fatherly about it. I felt like he was the only person around me who truly cared about me, and didn't judge me. I didn't know that he was manipulating me to his own purposes. We were still on Tatooine when we got a message from Obi-Wan. He was tracking the people behind the assassination attempts, and he was on Geonosis, and in trouble. He wanted us to retransmit the message to the Council, and we did that, but we went there after him. He was the most important person in my life at that time, and I didn't want to lose him the way that I had just lost my mother."

He paused, and she felt waves of grief from him, about her grandmother's death. It was something that he hadn't dealt with, and it still affected him deeply. "Many things happened on Geonosis. We were captured, found Obi-Wan, and were sentenced to death. On the way to the arena, your mother and I professed our love to one another again; that was the moment that we gave into our feelings despite the mess that it was going to cause in our lives. Your mother was hurt in the battle, but she carried her battlescars with dignity. Two hundred Jedi, along with the first battalions of Clones arrived toward the end of the battle. By that point, I had taken off to fight Palpatine's second apprentice, Darth Tyranus. He was a former Jedi, Qui-Gon's Master, actually. His name was Dooku. We fought, and he took my arm."

"You lost your arm?" she asked, having not heard the story from anyone.

"Yes, it was replaced with a mechanical one. Master Yoda came to my defense, but Dooku escaped. That was the first battle of the Clone Wars, and it was a massive blow to the order. Virtually every Jedi that came to Geonosis that day died. Only Yoda's arrival with the Clones allowed for any of them to survive. I returned to Naboo with Padmé, and we were married. The three years that followed were wrought with tension, battles, separation, anxiety, fear, and non-stop motion. I was reported dead not less than twenty times, and it always hurt your mother to think that I had actually succumbed to the war. I always came home to her, though. She was the reason I breathed. Even after I was Knighted, I was often paired with Obi-Wan. We were less the teacher and the student, and more the best of friends, brothers-in-arms. I never told him about my relationship with Padmé, and I think that forced distance between us," he sighed, the memory of his time in the war weighing on him heavily.

"We had been on the Outer Rim, fighting battle after battle, with no end in sight when Coruscant itself was attacked. We were called home. We'd been gone for six months, seven. I don't remember even, now. I just remember how ecstatic I was to be going home. Obi-Wan was amused by that, I remember that clearly as well. We broke the blockade, and took down their main ship, _The Invisible Hand,_literally. I fought Dooku again then. He died at my hand, and he deserved it. He had hurt Obi-Wan, and he'd kidnapped Palpatine…" he trailed off as he realized how deeply he had gotten into his memories. "I'm sorry. I am getting a bit lost in my own memories."

"It's ok. I want to know. I feel like I can almost see what's going on, and I want to understand you."

He nodded, then continued. "That was how I felt then. I know now that Palpatine arranged for his own kidnapping, and was controlling the CIS through Dooku. He orchestrated the whole war from both sides. I don't know how I feel about that particular series of events now."

"Maybe you can tell me later, after you've had a chance to think about it."

"Maybe," he answered, but she could feel that he wasn't entirely sure that he would be back. He was expecting her to reject her after he told her everything. "We were able to make it to the surface of Coruscant without getting ourselves killed, thankfully. I met up with your mother later on, and she was happy to see me, but I could sense that she was terribly afraid. I made her tell me what was wrong. She told me," he paused, and she waited, not knowing where she was going with this story.

"She told me that she was pregnant. That you were coming. I was convinced that you were a girl, and she was convinced that you were a boy," he said, and she could swear that he was being smug about having been right. She giggled, knowing the truth, but said nothing, "That night I started dreaming of the death of my Angel, and I went to Master Yoda, asking him about what I could do."

She shivered as his anger at the situation and the sudden change of his mood; even after nearly twenty years his anger was still so thick as it washed over her that it made her just a little bit afraid, "He told me that I had to let go of my fear, and that death is a natural part of the Force, that joining the Force is a cause for celebration, not grief. That was when I turned to Palpatine. He told me that he knew a power that could keep her alive. I pledged myself to him, and he ordered me to kill all of the Jedi in the Temple, so that I could immerse myself deeply enough in the dark side to save her."

He stood then, pacing about the little open space that she had in her common room with all of the boxes that were stacked there, and she started to understand why people feared the man who was her father, "I went to see her after, and I told her to stay on Coruscant; I was headed to Mustafar to end the war, to kill what was left of the CIS leadership. Palpatine knew where they were, of course, because he had ordered them to go there. I was insane, out of my mind. Obi-Wan tricked Padmé into revealing to him my location."

"I thought she had betrayed me," he said, his voice strangled, and grief washing over her through the Force. "I grabbed her by the throat, and a choked her into unconsciousness. I knew then that I hadn't killed her, that she was still alive. I shouldn't have believed Palpatine when he told me otherwise. You are the evidence that she lived for a time, at least. Obi-Wan and I fought, and he nearly killed me. I don't know even why he left me alive. It would have been more merciful to kill me, and would have caused him less trouble."

She thought for a while after he finished his story. He was not the person that she would have thought he would be. He hated the things he had done, and even more than that, he hated himself for having done them. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wish I could have had the chance to meet you before Palpatine turned you into a monster and his personal tool for darkness."

She took his silence as a good sign. It was hard for her to see him suffering, but she knew somewhere deep inside herself that it was going to take a long time for him to come to terms with what had happened to him, and to her because of it. His bitterness toward Obi-Wan for having not killed him was something he would need to get over, and his hatred of himself. It was going to take some time, and lots of patience. She hoped she would have enough. "You said that you didn't know why Obi-Wan left you alive, but you would have never gotten a chance to see me, to know who I am if he hadn't."

Realization that she was right did nothing to improve his mood. "I don't see how that matters."

She conceded. "I think he knew that dying in darkness was not your destiny. He may not have been conscious of it, but I think he knew."

"Obi-Wan never cared about me. He just put up with me because Qui-Gon asked him to train me," he said, but it sounded petulant, as though if he kept believing that, then he could continue hating him, and he wouldn't have to deal with the emotions that conflicted within him.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" she pressed, knowing the answer to be a true one, but she knew that she would have to walk carefully with Vader, for a while, at least.

"Yes, so far as I know."

"So you could ask him how he feels about you, couldn't you?"

"No. I would much rather kill him. He is a Jedi, and I am a Sith. It is my destiny to kill the Jedi," he answered her, but it was more like a plea; he didn't want to see Obi-Wan because that would remind him of how they had failed each other.

She shook her head, knowing that to pursue the subject further would only make him stubborn. There was little that she could say to him at that moment that would help him. She yawned, realizing then how tired she was. "I think I should go to bed. I'll get started on this again tomorrow," she said, waving her arm to indicate the boxes and blinking sleepily.

He seemed to notice her fatigue then, "I will leave you, then," he said, melancholy at having never been permitted to tuck her into bed when she was little washing through him, and leaking out to her. That was what gave her hope, what made her feel that there was a chance that her true father still existed somewhere inside the monster that had been created from the ashes of his previous life.

* * *

The Emperor requested Vader's presence once again. "How was your night in with the Countess?" Palpatine asked with little preamble.

"It went well enough," he answered, but made no further commentary.

"It needs to be doing better than 'well enough,' my friend."

"I will not use force with her. She will like me, or not, of her own volition. Her father arranged this, but I am not going to make this more difficult for her than it already is."

The Emperor sneered. "So you _like_ her, now?"

"I neither like nor dislike her. I have yet to get to know her that well."

The Emperor was apparently either too busy to further torture Vader, or this had been what he either wanted or expected, because he dismissed Vader with a wave of his hand. "Further your relationship. I expect you to be proactive with this. She will be your wife, and I expect that you will fulfill all of your husbandly duties with her. I will send you a list of possible dates for your wedding. You will discuss this with her and return the date to me."

The full extent what he was saying was not lost on Vader. Palpatine had never let him live down the fact that he was not as powerful as he had been as a Jedi; he was half a person, and Palpatine made sure that he knew it. There had been many who had attempted to take the place of Vader, and though none had succeeded, his luck would not hold out forever. He left the throne room, wanting desperately nothing more than to be able to go to a real home with a real family, his real family. _Oh, Padmé, how did I let things get so far from where they ought to be?_ he asked himself. There was no answer; there never was, but he felt a new resolve to make a real effort to bring things back into line with what his heart wanted.

His heart was a battered and bruised thing, nearly dead, until he realized that Leia was his daughter. She had breathed life into something Palpatine thought he'd killed, and Vader decided that it had been so long since he'd felt anything other than anger, hate, pain, and fear that he'd nearly forgotten how to feel anything else. It would have hurt him so much if Leia had rejected him; he had wanted to get it over with if she was going to do it. She hadn't said much after he'd told her every bad thing he'd done leading up to her birth. He wasn't prepared to tell her what he'd done since. He imagined that she likely knew that anyway, and it wouldn't have mattered much if she hadn't known; he felt like he had already told her about the worst day of his life.

* * *

Leia looked through the last box of stuff, deciding that none of it was important enough to bother with. Now that her apartment was clear of obstructions, she wondered if her father would let her have C-3P0 and R2-D2 there. She activated her comm to ask him. His face appeared quickly. "I'm a bit busy now, sweetheart. How have you been?"

"I'm good, Daddy," she said, smiling warmly at her adopted father. "I was wondering if you could send C-3P0 and R2-D2 to me; I've got everything set up here, finally, and I think that they would be so much help to me."

He looked at her for a moment. "Aren't you the one who complains the most about them?"

She smiled sadly, "I guess I'm a little homesick. Threepio can do some housework for me, and Artoo always cheers me up."

"Alright, sweetheart, I will send them on, but it will probably be a couple of days before they get there," he said, and she saw him glance up from the screen.

She brightened. "Thanks, Dad. I miss you."

"I miss you, too. I've got a meeting now. I love you."

"I love you, too," she said, and watched his face disappear as he ended the transmission.

She set the comm to another number. She wanted to talk to her brother, and this station was secure enough for that, at least once or twice. It took longer for an answer to come from the Lars's than it had from her father. Obi-Wan's face was the one she saw first. "Ah, Princess. How is Coruscant?"

"Fine. I saw…Vader again."

"Really. Did he have anything to say?"

"Lots. I really feel sorry for him."

"What did you talk about?"

"I didn't say much; I think he expected me to throw him out after what he told me. He told me a lot of what went on, just very generally, and some of the reasons for why he did what he did. Did you know that he had nightmares?"

"He's had nightmares and prophetic dreams since he was a young child," Obi-Wan said.

"He said he had nightmares about his mother's death for weeks and weeks before she died."

"Yes, I knew that. It was hard to tell him that they were just dreams. I didn't even totally believe it myself. I have known for a long time that he more often dreams truth than fiction."

"He said that Mom encouraged him to go check them out."

"Of that I have no doubt. Your mother was always quite strong-willed."

"He told me that she died in his arms. She was kidnapped by Tuskan Raiders and he killed the ones who did it."

Obi-Wan looked down. "I didn't know that. I didn't press him to talk about what happened on Tatooine because I have no experience with family, and what happened on Geonosis right after was just as traumatizing. I was very young when I went to the Temple. Anakin actually remembered his mother, he was attached to her. Maybe if I had tried to compare his loss of her to my loss of Qui-Gon, it might have helped me understand more what he was going through. I've thought often since that I should have tried to figure out what happened, to help him more, but he never asked."

"He never asked you, but he asked Palpatine."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I should have seen that, I should have tried harder."

"Don't blame yourself, Ben. I think he has accepted that Palpatine was trying as hard as he could to drive a wedge between the two of you from practically the moment you took him as your Padawan. He talked some about the Battle of Naboo, the Battle of Geonosis, and the Battle of Coruscant."

"Those were turning points in his life, and each was marked by death. What did he have to say about the Battle of Coruscant?"

"It brought the two of you into the Core, after you had been gone for a long time. He said that you were amused by how excited he was to go home. He talked a little about a battle with someone named Dooku aboard a ship called the _Invisible Hand_."

"I remember that battle; or rather I remember the beginning of that battle, and landing that infernal ship."

"He said that you'd gotten hurt, and that was one of his reasons for killing Dooku. He talked a little more of the aftermath. Meeting up with Mom again, and finding out that we were on the way. He said that Mom was convinced that Luke was on the way, and he was convinced that I was," she said, a grin spreading on her face, "And he sounded so smug, because he thought he was right."

"You didn't try to dissuade him of that notion, did you?"

"Oh, no. I don't think he's ready to meet Luke yet, and he would insist. He's very stubborn."

"And you are no less so."

She gave him a dirty look. "He talked about the dreams he started having that night, about Mom dying, and talking to Master Yoda, and what Master Yoda said not helping, and going to Palpatine, who told him that if he were a Sith, there was a power that could keep her from dying."

She watched the aging Jedi as he assimilated the information into his memories of the time between them landing on Coruscant and their confrontation on Mustafar. "I wish he would have told me. I wish he would have trusted me. I wonder if that was the morning he missed the meeting about the Sieges," he said it out loud, but he was talking to himself. When he focused his attention back on her, he asked, "Did he say anything else?"

"He talked about Mustafar. He said he didn't know why you left him alive. I think he really hates himself for all the things he's done."

"I don't know why either, except that I just couldn't do it. Leaving him alive was a coward's way out. I could defeat him in battle, but to kill him in cold blood after…" he trailed off, not able to say more because of the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

Having seen glimpses into the soul of the man he had called his brother for a dozen years, Leia understood. She'd heard her father say about a boy she'd known when she was younger, that he had a 'poet's soul.' And she knew now what that meant. Tragic—that was the first word she thought of when she thought of Vader. Someone who should be writing poetry, someone who cared with every fiber of their being—and that was what she thought about him. He cared far more than anyone would have believed, especially considering his reputation. He had cut himself off from his heart, become a machine, and she was going to have to dig deeply into his soul to bring it back out again.

Her brother appeared in the background. "Hey, Leia. How's Coruscant?"

"It's ok, but I would rather have you here," she said, touching the screen. He touched the screen in return. "I don't know how I'm going to do all of this, with no one here to support me. It's going to be tough."

"Yeah. Just be glad you get out of Jedi training. It's torture."

"What do you mean?"

"I think Ben is a closet sadist."

"If you had kept in shape, you wouldn't have the issues you are having," Ben said, defending himself calmly. "Besides, what you are doing is good for the farm as well."

"I've taken apart three of the vaporators by hand, and cleaned them and put them back together," Luke explained to Leia, pointedly ignoring Ben.

"And they are all operating much more efficiently, and their output is up by twenty-five percent. The two days that they are down while you fix them is made up in less than two weeks," Ben continued, not bothered at all by the way Luke was acting.

"But it's hard, Ben," he said, finally turning his attention away from her for a moment.

"Of course it is. But life is hard, and if you are going to be wielding a lightsaber for hours a day, you need to build up your muscle strength. As soon as you've taken apart all of the vaporators and put them back together, you may start learning your forms," Ben said. "But you will still have to keep up with everything else."

"So, you see how I've been," Luke said.

"I see," she said with a smile. She glanced at the chronometer, and realized how late it was. "I have a meeting, I didn't realize I had been on the comm for as long as I have. I will have to talk to you later."

"Do you think that you're going to be able to call me again any time soon?" he asked her.

"Dad is sending R2 to me; he should be able to keep my station secure, I hope."

Obi-Wan nodded, and Luke looked sad that she wouldn't be able to talk for longer. "I love you, Luke. We'll talk again soon."

"I love you, too," he said, and she ended her transmission. She was really going to have to run if she was going to make it on time to her first meeting with Mon Mothma.

* * *

Vader wanted to see Leia, but he put it off; she was busy connecting with the Senate, rubbing elbows with the right people. He knew that the days leading up to the first day of a new session of Senate were always intensely busy. He had found out that the hard way, having come home days before senate was to be in session one year, and had barely gotten to spend any time with Padmé when she wasn't sleeping.

He didn't have the time to chase her down, anyway. He had his Fleet to keep track of, and communicate with, and coordinate attacks for. He had the Countess, who he had to see at least nightly, and he still had so many little things to take care of while he was on Coruscant. He filled his time with the mind-numbing bureaucracy that had crept into a significant portion of his life. He started to think fondly of a time when battles hadn't meant endless hours of paperwork afterward. Shaking his head to clear the memories, he decided that he was going to go see the Princess. He needed something to distract himself with, and afterward he could see the Countess, but he wouldn't stay long. She didn't yet seem comfortable with him, and he didn't feel comfortable around her. She was too quiet.

He took his time as he stood in front of the door to Leia's apartment, wondering if she was even at home. He supposed that the only way he would find out would be to ring the chime, so he did. He heard some noise from behind the door, and then it opened, revealing a protocol droid. "Oh, my," the droid said. "I'm afraid that Miss Leia is not here. I am not authorized to admit visitors."

He stared at the droid for a moment. "What is your designation, droid?"

"Oh," the flustered droid said, "I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations."

He took a moment to compose himself. "How did you come to be in the possession of the Princess Leia Organa?"

"Oh, my, sir. So far as I remember, I have always been in service to the House of Organa," he said, and from somewhere behind him, the beeping of an unruly R2 unit reached his ears. "My compatriot, R2-D2, says that he can remember more than I can, and he is rather a rude sort. I'm sure that you don't want to talk to him."

"I can perfectly well understand what he says, and I do indeed want to speak with him," he informed the droid. The droid that he had build for his mother, who now defended his daughter's home.

A series of distressed whistles came from the droid in the background, and Artoo wheeled himself off into another room. "He, it seems, does not want to talk with you, sir, and I can't say that I blame him. If half the things that are said about you are true, then he has every right to be afraid of you, and I think that if Miss Leia had wanted to speak with you, she would have left instructions to that effect. You should leave now," Threepio said, and he shut the door. He didn't know what to think. Threepio had obviously had a memory wipe. It was lucky for him, should he ever choose to use it, that he had build redundant memory systems into the droid, it was a simple matter of connecting a few wires that ordinarily didn't need to be connected. Unfortunately, those wires were inside Threepio's core, and he would practically have to tear the droid completely apart to access the wires he wanted. Leia might not let him do that, but then again she might, especially if he let Artoo help. He turned to go to the Countess's apartment, when he nearly ran over someone incredibly short. He took a step back and realized that it was Leia.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Oh, did you need to talk to me?"

"That would be fine, if you aren't too busy. I know how this week must be for you, and not being used to it probably makes it worse."

She shook her head. "It's fine," she said as she opened the door to her apartment. He followed her quietly inside, noting that Threepio had taken refuge, wherever Artoo was, probably. "Threepio!" she called out, and he trundled out.

"Yes, Miss Leia?" he asked, then he saw Vader. "Oh, my."

"Vader is my guest, and no one is to know that he is welcome here, but he is. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, but it was clear that he didn't like it.

She sighed. "You can go back to whatever you were doing," she told the droid.

"Thank you. Will you be needing anything else tonight?"

"No, I think I'll just go to bed after we talk for a while."

"Yes, Miss Leia," the droid replied, and he left the common room again.

"I am sorry," Vader said to her. "It's my fault he is like he is."

"What do you mean?" she asked as she turned back to look at him.

"I built Threepio when I was a child. He can be less than ideal in some of his capacities."

She studied him for a while. "I like him more, now that I know he's a part of my family history. Why did you build him?"

"I wanted him to be able to help my mother out, and he did until she died. He came with us, and was a witness at our wedding, as was R2-D2. Your mother took Threepio to help her around the house, and I took Artoo, who had been given to her by the Naboo Government, and he flew with me in the Clone Wars."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"I never knew that Artoo served in the Clone Wars. And with you, one of the best pilots out there."

Somehow modesty managed to work its way into his emotional state. "Well, I think part of it was good partnership. I understood Artoo and Obi-Wan quite well, and so I could anticipate what I could do based on what I knew of them."

She smiled, happy that they could talk, or something to that effect. She wasn't easy to read, and she shielded quite well, even just instinctually, "I think R2 would say that it was mostly his good piloting that kept you alive. He's very cocky that way, she said, her mirth dancing around him. "Artoo, could you come out here?"

A series of beeps and whistles issued forth from whatever hiding place Artoo had found. "He does not wish to come out here," he interpreted for her, since he could feel her confusion. "Don't force it. Both of the droids will come around in time."

She nodded. "I didn't know that you could speak droid."

"Well, spend days on end with only Artoo as your companion, and you will pick it up rather quickly as well."

She smiled, seeming to be genuinely happy to have him there. "So, is the reason you haven't come to visit that you know how terribly busy a senator is?"

"Yes, especially just before session starts. It should die down to a more manageable level a couple days after the session starts."

"That's good. I don't think I could keep up with this level of activity for much longer."

"You will be fine. It goes faster than you think. I can remember your mother complaining that there wasn't enough time before session, ever."

He started to feel a sense of peace coming from her, and somewhere inside him his heart, a battered and beaten thing, started to respond. He realized after a few moments that she had fallen into sleep, and he smiled under his mask. He gently picked her up, using the Force more than he used his arms, because it would be less likely to wake her, and he carried her into her room, and laid her down on her bed. There was little that he could do to make her more comfortable, but he took her shoes off, and as he pulled a throw blanket over her to keep her warm, he heard the muted beeping of Artoo. He knelt on the floor, bringing himself closer to the level of the droid, though he'd always been bigger than Artoo. "She's just sleeping. You remember how the days before Senate are."

Artoo beeped an affirmative. He queried Vader again, and Vader thought for a moment about what to say to Artoo. "You remember how I tried to protect Padmé, before I went and did the stupidest thing I ever did in my life?"

He laughed quietly as Artoo said something about droids being more intelligent than humans. "I wouldn't say that, but you at least have the option to be less emotionally attached. Have you had a memory wipe, too?"

Artoo's negative response alleviated his anxiety about the droid. "Did anyone mess with Threepio's back-up memory system?"

Artoo's confused response told him what he wanted to know. "Good. Padmé always used to say that you are too curious for your own good. I think she was right, and you stay out of Threepio's insides until I can help you," he admonished.

Artoo didn't like that, but he grudgingly agreed to it. "Thank you, old friend," he said to Artoo as he got up.

He felt odd, as though he'd been too deep in his memories for his own good again. He realized that he had; he was a different person when he was around Leia. He was still the confused twenty-three-year-old Jedi Knight who had made a decision that had irrevocably changed the face of the galaxy, and more importantly, the way his family was, the way that they had never been together. He examined the sad-but-hopeful emotions he felt for Leia as he made his way to the Countess's apartment.


	4. Pictures

**AN: Here is the much delayed fourth chapter to this story. I'm sorry that I have been neglecting this story, though most of you who read this will be happy to know that it is in favor of dabbling a bit with the third installment out of the 'Shadow' series. If anyone has any ideas what I should call that, I'm open to suggestions...right now I have it labled YS3 and that just won't do for an actual title...**

The Chaotic Soul of Demons:**Yes, yes, I know. He wasn't a fan of those forms, but I think he had to learn them at least enough to know that he didn't like them. **

**Thanks everyone for reviewing; now enjoy the next chapter!**

* * *

Vesenj didn't know why Vader had wanted to attend the Senate's inaugural party. He wasn't a Senator, and she wasn't a Senator; and neither of them, as far as she knew, were good friends with any Senators. Palpatine hadn't required them to attend this function. In fact, it wasn't even on the events that Palpatine thought they should be attending tonight, but this was where they were. It wasn't really odd in her experience for Vader to do things just to irritate the Emperor, but this particular thing struck her as odd, even for him, that he had some motive other than irritating Palpatine. This struck her as very odd, considering how he avoided politics like the plague. Pushing the thoughts out of her mind, she turned to thoughts of who she could mingle with. This _was_ a good opportunity for her to get to know some of the more influential people on Coruscant.

She wandered over to a small group and joined in conversation with several people. It seemed to her that she was a bit of a celebrity, which meant that people were more willing to speak with her. "Hello, Countess," one somewhat-inebriated Senator greeted her.

"Good evening," she replied.

"My name is Senator Elkar Draveg, and I am here representing the Cirrus System," she listened politely, though she was sure he thought he was sounding impressive, she was far from impressed.

"It is wonderful that you can be here for your people. I see someone with whom I must speak. If you will excuse me?"

"Certainly," he answered, and she thanked the Force that he hadn't consumed enough alcohol to have the audacity to try to stop her. She headed for a small group of younger women.

"Hello," the shorter of the two brunettes said.

"Hello," she said quietly.

"I am Leia Organa of Alderaan, and this is Pooja Naberrie of Naboo, and we were all just getting acquainted," the shorter woman said again.

"I am Winter," said another of the group, one with silver hair, and after a pause she said, "This is Senator Selnia Harbright of Salliche," indicating the blonde woman.

"Vesenj Ercarach," she said, introducing herself.

"So, are you not a senator?" asked Pooja.

"No, no. Just a dignitary. I don't even know why I'm here really, except that this is the party of the year, or some such thing," she said, and the others laughed politely.

"Naberrie is a very big name on Naboo, is it not?" Leia asked Pooja politely.

"It is. Grandmother Winama was very influential. Then of course, there was Aunt Padmé," Pooja said sadly. "Everyone was so shocked when she died, and so young. She was only a couple of years older than I am now."

"I'm sorry, Pooja," Leia said earnestly, "You don't have to talk about it if it's painful."

"No, it's fine. I was seven when she died, it hurt deeply then, because I was too young to understand what had happened, but I think it hurt Mom more than any of us. Mom lost her baby sister that day, and I think a part of her died with Aunt Padmé."

"It is hard to think of such an influential woman being anyone's baby sister," Selnia said.

"Whatever happened with the investigation of the child she was carrying?" Winter asked.

Pooja sighed, and then answered, "Oh, nothing ever came of it. I think that not many people on Naboo really wanted to know, and the family just wanted to leave her be. It was so strange because she was so close to full term, and none of us even knew that she was in a relationship with anyone, let alone one that would have gotten that far. I think that hurt Mom, too. She and Padmé had never really been ones to keep secrets from one another."

Vesenj watched Leia shoot a dirty look at Winter, who was quiet after that. Apparently, Leia didn't want to upset the Senator from Naboo. "So what about your family, Leia?"

"Oh, Mother died when I was so young, I really don't have many memories of her. She was sweet, though, and much nicer than my aunts, who ended up raising me, while Father was here."

"So your family is Senatorial as well?"

"Oh, yes. I'm related to a number of people who have served as Senator for Alderaan."

"That is very nice, Leia, that you are keeping with your family tradition," Pooja said, and Vesenj watched as Leia's eyes closed for a moment, like there was something in that statement that wounded her heart in some way.

Leia recovered quickly enough that no one else seemed to have noticed, and said, "Yes, it is fortunate that I have such great Senators in my family to look up to."

Pooja smiled. "So how is your father taking retirement?"

"He isn't retired. He is still First Chairman and Viceroy over the entire planet," Leia said, laughing, "I don't think he'll ever retire completely."

"Sounds like him. I was able to meet him a couple of times," Pooja said.

"Oh, no," Selnia said, "Darth Vader is coming this way."

* * *

Leia's heart quickened as much as anyone else's as Vader approached them, though for different reasons. They all dropped silent after Selnia said that he was coming, and turned to watch his approach.

He came up to their group and stopped, which scared her a bit. He was quiet for a moment, and she could feel him wrestling with emotions he was not really familiar with, and he didn't seem happy at all. "Good evening, ladies."

A murmur of "Good evening, Lord Vader," was returned to him.

He turned to the young lady who had approached them last, Vesenj. "Countess, we are to attend his Majesty's pleasure. He insists on your presence. I am sorry."

Stunned she looked at him. She hadn't realized that this quiet girl—for she couldn't be more than a year older than Leia, if that even—was the Countess of Cormoron that everyone had been discussing for weeks on end. _That's what I get for _not_ watching the HoloNet._ She thought to herself as mirth swept through her at his obvious discomfort at the situation. It really shouldn't have been funny, but it was.

_If you tease me about this, Force help me, I will find some suitable punishment. I already feel badly enough that she's scared out of her wits at my presence, and that she was forced into this situation. Neither of us is being given a choice in this,_ she heard in her head, in a tone distinct from Vader's but it sounded more natural, more like the voice she would have thought her father would have had.

She composed herself quickly, and thought, _I am sorry, but it is rather funny. I hadn't thought the Countess to be as young as she is._

_She is only a few days older than you, child of mine. I feel as though I am robbing the cradle. _

_I won't say anything, _she thought, sensing that he was picking up her thoughts easily, though she didn't think that the Emperor would be able to pick up on the conversation they were having. Vader seemed confident that they were safe enough.

The Countess gave her a strange look as she left, but Leia wasn't about to ask her about it. She wouldn't be the one in the way of something that the Emperor wanted. That would draw attention to herself that she absolutely did not need.

* * *

Vader took the Countess's arm, and headed away from the gaggle of young ladies, most of them senators, toward the Emperor's dais. "Why was Senator Organa looking at you that way?"

"Senator Organa?" he asked, looking around for Bail, but then realized who she was talking about. "Oh, this is her first term as Senator. She probably hasn't seen me like this before."

"Oh. Are you at all close with her family?"

"Viceroy Organa and I were friends at one time," he said, "But I don't wish to discuss my relationship with the Organas."

She was quiet as they approached the dais. "Oh, and the other thing," Vader said, his distaste clear in his voice even through the vocalizer, "The Emperor insists that I call you, 'my dear.'"

She nodded. "Is there anything that I should call you?"

"It was not specified," he told her, and he watched as she swallowed hard, and he scrutinized her emotional state. "I do not believe you will be required to speak much."

A nod was all the acknowledgement he got out of her, but they were nearly to their destination, and both of them fell silent.

"Ah, good," Palpatine said as he noticed them. "I wish for you to have your holographs taken."

The grumbling inside Vader's head behind his mental shields increased in volume, but Palpatine didn't notice. "Yes, Master," he said finally, having reigned in his temper enough to speak.

They went over to where Palpatine had indicated they were to stand as they had their pictures taken.

* * *

Leia shook her head as she finally stopped staring after Vader and the poor girl that had been 'given' to him. "Your first encounter with Darth Vader?" Selnia asked.

"No, just…" she trailed off, not knowing what to say about the man who had once been her father. She shook her head.

Her new friends looked at her with concern. "He can really affect some people," Pooja said kindly.

"I know. He's not the person I would expect from his reputation. The Emperor's Enforcer shouldn't be able to make small talk at the Senatorial Ball."

"Speaking of which," Winter said with a devilish look in her eyes, "We should go find some good looking senators to dance with." Leia grinned. Leave it to Winter to figure something fun to do even at such a stiflingly boring event.

* * *

Leia was working in her small office that she'd set up in the second bedroom her apartment. It had been a couple of days since she'd gone to the Senate Ball; a couple of days since she'd been formally sworn in as Senator of Alderaan. She heard the chime of the front door. It could be anyone, but she wasn't expecting a visitor. She sighed as she got up from her desk, wishing again that Winter hadn't chosen to get more involved with the Rebellion, and would therefore be with her now. She both envied those of the Rebellion, and wished that they didn't feel it necessary. Maybe working with her birth father would change things. That was the real reason that she wasn't actively involved—he was more important than the Rebellion. She could feel it to the depths of her soul that if she could teach him to love again, that the rest of the galaxy would turn out for the better. It seemed so wrong, somehow, that she could, or _he_ could be so vitally important to the path of the galaxy. Shaking herself out of her musings, she opened the door to find none other than Vader on the other side.

"Hi," she said brightly.

"Good evening, Princess. Am I interrupting anything?"

"No, no," she motioned for him to enter, "come inside."

He nodded, "Thank you."

"What brings you by?"

"I was in the building."

"Oh, yes. I met Vesenj in the hall yesterday," she said. "She seems really nice, but…quiet," she said, looking up at him. In her imagination, she could almost see a face instead of the mask he always wore, and she judged his emotions by the expressions she saw there. He seemed to accept what she said, not really having a reaction either way.

"She is. But she is also young. I think she will grow into a more confident person, and possibly be less quiet."

"You don't like her?"

"I am unaccustomed to someone so quiet."

"By that do you mean that my mother wasn't?"

He sighed, raising a gloved hand, brushing her face gently, "She was like you. Some of your less stellar qualities, you inherited from me, but your ability to orate, the caring that you have for your people, and even your interest in politics you got from your mother. She was a handful—even at fourteen."

"Fourteen?"

"She was fourteen when she was elected Queen of Naboo. That was how we met."

She had heard that story already, but she asked him simply, "Tell me about her, please."

Vader sighed, and was silent for a moment. "I was not with her when she called for the Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum, no Jedi was. It was perhaps the start of the Empire, though none of us knew it at the time. The Trade Federation, a group composed mostly of Neimoidians, first blockaded then invaded Naboo. A particularly toady specimen by the name of Nute Gunray was their leader at the time. I know now that this was done on the orders of Palpatine, though they only knew him as Darth Sidious, and knew nothing about his position as Senator of Naboo, for that was what he was when they invaded.

"The Jedi were called to negotiate peace in this matter, and Master Qui-Gon and his Padawan were chosen to do that. They were permitted to board the Trade Federation vessel, only to have their pilots killed, and then the Trade Federation attempted to kill them as well. It was at that point that Sidious ordered them to invade Naboo. Nothing that the Trade Federation did was without the direct orders of the Sith from that point forward. I don't know how long he had been using them prior to that.

"The two Jedi hid aboard the vessels heading to the surface, and then escaped, meeting up on the edge of one of Naboo's swamps. It was there that the met a local, a Gungan named Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar helped them to get to Theed, the capital of Naboo. They arrived just in time to free the Queen and her handmaidens from the clutches of the Federation's droids.

"They traveled through the city, and obtained one of the craft there for the use of the Queen, though they had to fight some droids to do it. As they exited the planet's atmosphere, though, they couldn't get away fast enough to keep the Trade Federation from shooting at them. They managed to escape, though their hyperdrive was damaged."

She imagined that he was smiling, with a faraway look in his eyes. In her mind, he had blue eyes, like Luke did, and his face, though older, was much like Luke's. "That was what brought them to Tatooine. It is not as far from Naboo to Tatooine as it is from Naboo to Coruscant, and it was the closest place that was not under the control of the Trade Federation.

"After Tatooine, we went to Coruscant, to permit her to bring the matter before the full Senate, among other things. Palpatine convinced her that the only way to get anything done would be to dispose of Valorum. Valorum was in the midst of a manufactured scandal, and Palpatine even told her that, and that it made the man virtually powerless. What he didn't tell her was that Palpatine, or someone under his direct influence was the one responsible for that scandal."

"He had been working toward becoming Emperor all of your life, hadn't he?"

"Yes, and probably longer than that. I believe he's been in politics since he was your age, and he is in his eighties now. He orchestrated the events of that particular moment in time to his advantage, and his reward was the Chancellorship."

The gravity of the situation, that there was a man who had spent over half his life engineering the downfall of democracy, and the last twenty years trying to quash the last vestiges of it sank into her finally. The downfall of Palpatine would be something that would take as masterful engineering as it had taken to get him into power. "He can't be allowed to continue to oppress the people."

"What do you propose to do about it?" Vader asked her, suddenly suspicious of her motives.

Instead of answering, she asked him, "What would Mother have done, had she lived?"

He paused, long heartbeats stretching into moments, then said, "She would have fought him."

"Is that not reason enough to do so?"

He shook his head, sadly, she thought, "You don't understand, Leia. He has power over me, my actions."

"But not your thoughts."

"To some extent, you are right, but I must take great care to ensure that he does not invade the thoughts that I want to keep from him. And if he even suspected for a moment that I was plotting his destruction, he would torture me, invade my mind, and uncover every traitorous thought I had. And in doing so, he would find out about you, and he would do everything within his power to hurt you, to turn you into what I am, what he is, a petty creature without the capacity to love, driven only by hatred. And once he had done that, and he would probably make me watch, because he would know how much it would hurt me, he would kill me, or have you kill me, discarding me in favor of someone with more power. I am weak because I am mostly machine now. The Force does not flow through me in the way that it once did. It flows through you in that way, though it is muted, sluggish. I think that is a protection that you have against the Emperor, but I do not know if it is something that you have done or someone else. I suspect the latter. I can tell that you are extremely sensitive to the Force, though I doubt even Master Yoda would be able to do so at this point."

She was quiet as he finished, then asked him, "Even if he would do all that, wouldn't it be better to fight for a better tomorrow, for the galaxy, for me, for everyone, than to stand by and let darkness overtake everything?"

He had no answer for her, and the thoughts she was provoking him to were dangerous ones. He seemed suddenly in a hurry to leave, lest she actually convince him to do what she'd just proposed.

"I would need help," was the only thing that he said to her before he left.

"You would get it," she said to the door, since he had not allowed her the time to say it before he left. He would have probably asked her what she meant by that, and she wasn't ready to answer those questions. It was probably going to be a long time before they were both ready to talk seriously about the overthrow of the Empire. The fact that he'd been willing to consider it at all was a step in the right direction.

* * *

Obi-Wan was concerned about what Leia had said. She hadn't had time to contact him and talk, or maybe she hadn't wanted to answer his questions right then. _I think Vader would be an ally in trying to overthrow the Emperor, but he is afraid that if he fails, I will fall under the Emperor's sway, or die. I want so badly to tell him that there are still people out there who would help him, people beyond me, but I don't think he's ready. He talks about Mom, and it's like he's a different person, a better person, but so many years under the thumb of the Emperor have broken him, made him into a tool of evil. It is like a delicate surgery, trying to repair the damage that Palpatine has done to his soul, and it has been made doubly hard by the requirement that Palpatine not realize that it is being done. _

_He realizes that something was done to me to ensure that I did not come under the scrutiny of the Empire as a Force-sensitive, and I thank whoever did that, but at the same time, I wish he would let me in more. I wish I could get to know the man who would have been, and perhaps should have been my father. I wish he wouldn't run away from me just as he's starting to really _feel_ something. In my mind I think I see him sometimes; how he would look if he wasn't Vader. Does Luke look like Anakin?_

It was her last line and question that bothered him the most. Luke did indeed very much resemble his father, though having known both of his parents; he could see Padmé's influence on Luke's looks: the softer jaw line, his height, his smile. That she could imagine Anakin in her mind, maybe it was some trick of the Force that he still after all these years, wasn't used to because it was someone with the name Skywalker, and Skywalkers were subject to an entirely different set of rules from the rest of them.

* * *

Leia had never been much of an artist. Her father had insisted she be exposed to a variety of art, both as a viewer, and as a student, and she had never done well, nor had she ever felt compelled to try her hand at anything that was not required for a grade. But for some reason she felt compelled to try to draw the man that she saw in her mind, the man that would have been her father. To say that he looked like Luke was not precisely true, though he did. He was an entirely different person, and it made her want to quantify it for herself, make it more concrete, more real, more _something._

As she started, she felt something, some presence guiding her strokes, for though she never did horridly in her art classes, she was far from a good artist. When she finished, hours later, once the compelling feeling left her and she took a good look at the whole picture, rather than the individual lines that made up the drawing, she marveled at how like the man she saw was to what she had drawn.

Artoo beeped at her curiously, so she showed him the drawing. He beeped mournfully at her. "He says that he did once know someone who looked like that, Miss Leia," Threepio translated for her.

"Thank you, Threepio. Would you fix me something for dinner?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Leia. Would you like something in particular?"

"No, just whatever doesn't take very long," she said as she stretched herself out from the cramped position she had curled up into. She turned to Artoo as Threepio went into the kitchen. "Will you send this picture to Obi-Wan?"

He beeped a quick affirmative, and wheeled over to the comm station. She looked at the picture again, wondering how the man grinning roguishly at her would have been as a father.


	5. Her Father's Child

**AN:Thanks to those who reviewed; I realize how difficult it can be to review during the Holiday Season. There are so many other demands on your time. I've even had trouble keeping up with this. **

**Hope this meets expectations, and thank you Sidious Sith for the suggestion...I am thinking that I have another month before I'm ready to start with the third part of my trilogy...Whatever I am going to call it. **

* * *

Leia looked over the message that she had gotten back from Obi-Wan. _It wrenches at my heart to see the drawing that you did of Anakin. Have you been studying pictures of him? I thought that his images were purged from Imperial databases along with all of the other Jedi. Has he given you some himself? As for what you have told me, I think you are doing your father some good, from the sound of it. I did not take any action to hide your Force-sensitivity; I didn't know that it was possible. You were not a presence in the Force, the way that your brother was, from the moment the two of you were born. It was for that reason that we consented to allowing you to go with Bail, instead of taking you somewhere remote as well. _

Leia looked at her drawing, wondering why she drew him smiling. _No,_ she started writing back, _I only see him in my mind. It is rather like the image overlays Vader inside my head when I see him. I think it is my mind's way of interpreting the emotions and other clues I get from him through the Force into non-verbal actions that I can more readily interpret. Maybe this Master Yoda that we spoke of when I was there know why I would seem less sensitive than Luke. Vader seems quite sure that I am very much Force-sensitive, but that it is muted purposefully. _

She sighed, looking at the drawing again, then laid it on the table in the common room, heading out to the Senate. She had work to do, mitigating the suffering that the Emperor caused.

* * *

Vader took two weeks before he was ready to talk to Leia again. Sometimes she was so much like her mother that it scared him, and others she was so much like him, it scared him more. He rang the chime at her door, which wooshed open, revealing only Threepio.

"Is the Princess in?" Vader asked.

"No, sir. I am sorry; we don't expect her home for several more hours," the droid said nervously.

He debated spending that time with the Countess, but decided he would rather be alone, and thought she would as well. "I will wait."

Threepio shuffled back reluctantly, apparently displeased at Leia's orders that Vader was permitted in her apartment. Vader sighed. Threepio was neurotically afraid of being deactivated, otherwise he would have shut the droid off. It turned out not to be an issue, as the droid promptly disappeared into the depths of her apartment.

Her apartment was meticulously clean, so the paper lying on the table in the common room struck him as odd. Paper was rather uncommon in general; most people used flimsiplast if they actually wanted something physical to handle, other than a datapad.

Vader sat down and picked up the paper. What was there was not written words, but an image. He frowned, looking at it. It was obviously a Jedi—perhaps the Jedi who'd been assigned to watch over Leia in her youth. It was difficult for him to see the drawing through the red haze of his visor for some reason. He focused on the details instead, trying to understand the image through its component parts. He saw the mussed hair, a ready smile, and broad shoulders, and they seemed familiar. He focused on the Jedi's arms, and realized that one of the arms was covered by a gauntlet. That made him re-examine the whole picture again. _Where did she get this?_ he wondered, realizing finally that it was a portrait of him.

Artoo rolled over to him then. He had always been braver, or perhaps more curious than Threepio, who was still somewhere else. "Where did Leia get this?" he asked the trusty droid.

Artoo beeped his answer, "Drew it?" Vader repeated incredulously, looking back at the image again. Artoo beeped affirmatively, then queried him. "Not today. That will take at least six hours, and I won't have time. Sometime soon, though. I will have to clear a day to do it."

Artoo didn't seem particularly happy with that answer, but Vader was distracted by the image in front of him. It was in this state that Leia found him several hours later. "Hi," she said, rather shocked by his appearance there. He set the drawing down.

"I was thinking about something that you said to me the other day; that the Empire created injustice. Tell me what you meant by that."

She sighed. "I don't have anything with me, but I can send you specific information tomorrow. A number of the Moffs abuse their systems, and do so openly. Unfortunately, I think there is little that could be done about that, but there are a few of them that I think would submit to pressure from a high enough source. I don't have that much clout, though."

"Who do you think this about?"

"I don't remember any of their names. I try not to bring my work home, if I can avoid it," she said. This was one of the moments she strongly reminded him of Padmé.

"What kind of changes do you think you could effect if something were done?"

She looked down, collecting her thoughts slightly before she gave him her answer. "I think that a couple of planets that have rampant slavery could easily be bettered by convincing the Moffs in charge that they would be better off not trying to make the lives of their people hell."

The mention of slavery made him bristle. He'd been a slave, and it was something—probably the only thing—that he hated more than Palpatine. "I will look into it," he assured her.

She nodded. "Is that why you were here?"

"Yes, and I," he faltered. _I needed to be home,_ was what he'd been about to say, but it was too soon to be saying that to her. She hadn't done anything beyond acknowledging their relationship. She didn't call him Father, Dad, or whatever. He had no right to invade her life, disrupt everything just because he wanted to have a relationship with her. And yet there was also the fact that she'd never rejected him. He had never felt judgment coming from her. "I wanted to see you," he finally decided on.

"You were looking at this," she said, indicating the drawing.

"It's fascinating. I didn't realize that you were a talented artist."

"I'm not, but this just came to me one day," she said, looking at him as she sat down across from him.

"You can take it with you, if you like," she said slowly.

"I would like to take a closer look at it," he agreed.

"Go ahead, then," she said, and he picked the piece of paper up, examining it again. "I should go. I don't want to impose upon your hospitality."

She laughed; it was her mother's laugh. It was beautiful. He could feel himself smiling under the mask, and she smiled back at him. "You are welcome here. I don't like bringing people here, because this is my sanctuary. I would rather go out, if I am going to be with other people."

"I will not come back if you feel that way about it."

"No, you don't understand. You are part of the reason that I don't want other people over here. I want there to be somewhere I can talk to you. You are an important part of my life."

The revelation that she felt her relationship with him was that important touched him. It was like the first ray of the sun beginning to melt the frost that had accumulated overnight in the depths of winter.

* * *

_Four months later..._

Vader walked into the Countess's apartment, and found her in tears. Since he had never encountered this condition with her, he was rather reluctant to approach her. She dried her eyes as soon as she noticed him. "What is wrong?" he asked hesitantly, not really sure how to approach the situation.

"I don't know," she said. He sighed; this was going to be a long exposition on how she did know, if she were anything like Padmé in this respect. He sat down and looked up at her expectantly as she paced, working through her wording. "I came into this engagement expecting the worst. I was prepared to endure rape, beatings, and neglect."

"Why would you agree to something like that?" he asked, now actually confused; the tears of earlier of less concern than what she had just told him that she expected him to do.

"Because, I want only one thing out of this marriage, and that is to get my mother back."

"What has happened to her?"

"She caught the eye of the Emperor. I was fourteen when he demanded that she come to him. He hasn't given her back."

Vader was silent. He knew some of what went on in the Emperor's private chambers, far more than he would have liked to have known, but Palpatine liked to gloat.

"She is still alive; that much we know, because he would take too much pleasure in sending her body back to my father to let that information slip away.

"My father researched the people of the Court carefully. He wanted someone who would be influential with the Emperor, but not someone who would kill me. He said that you only killed if you had a good reason to, and that the only females you had ever laid a hand on, at least that he could find, were Jedi. He seemed to think that I would be in little actual danger if he were to try to give me to you. He presented the idea to the Emperor, and so here we are."

"So why were you crying?"

"Because in the five months that I've been here, I had come to believe that you were actually a decent person. There are days that I think you are human, not just the machine that the HoloNet makes you out to be."

"I don't understand," he started, but she turned a clip from one of the trashier HoloNet news feeds on.

"I didn't expect to find out that you were going around to someone else behind my back, and not only that, but one of my friends," she was shaking, enraged, hurt, and disappointed by the perceived slight.

He watched the clip. It was short, Leia hugging him, no before and no after. He had gotten a hold of some holos of Padmé, and there was one with both of them in it. He had compiled them into a photo album, and given them to her, and she had just hugged him on impulse after she had looked at them.

"You must never reveal to anyone my relationship with Leia."

"Who am I going to tell that won't have already seen this?"

He shook his head. "That isn't what I meant. Will you agree?"

Now that he had her curious, she agreed, "Yes."

"Leia is my daughter."

He watched as the Countess reevaluated the situation, her eyes occasionally flicking to the HoloNet as it repeated the footage. "So, how old are you, anyway?" she asked, and he was a little startled. She had never asked him anything personal. Come to think of it, she had never asked him anything.

"Forty-two. My birthday would have been a few weeks ago, if I had any notion to celebrate such things."

"How old is she?"

"Her eighteenth birthday was this last Empire Day."

Her eyes widened slightly as she realized how close in age they were. "Do you know what they are saying about you on the HoloNet?"

"I do not pay any attention to the trash that they put out. I can't, and stay sane."

"They say that now that you have a nice young fiancée, that you're going after any young thing that catches your attention," he glowered, not that there would be an appreciable difference on the outside, and didn't respond. "So is that real, did she really hug you?"

"It is, unfortunately, real. I'll have to be clever when I speak with the Emperor. He insists on keeping me informed of such goings on."

"So is there any other weird stuff that I should know about you, before it crops up?"

"I am not that complicated, and Leia is not weird."

"You know what I mean."

"I do not think there is anything."

"No other relatives?"

"Only on Tatooine."

"Her mother isn't going to come back and want you back is she?"

"My wife is dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry," she said, realizing that she was talking about a sensitive topic.

"I think after eighteen years, if I cannot say that without being able to deal with it, I am never going to be able to deal with it."

* * *

Vader went to Leia's apartment after he'd spoken with the Countess. He was not at home anywhere as much as he was there, but he had to be very careful about visiting her too often. He rang the door chime; though he would be perfectly able to enter her apartment without her permission, he endeavored to treat her as an adult, not as his child. It was difficult sometimes. She opened the door, smiling warmly at him. It was the same smile that had graced her mother's face so many times. "May I come in?"

"Certainly," she told him, and he came inside.

"The Emperor has gone too far this time," he said after the door closed.

"What now?"

"The Countess was kind enough to inform me as to why her father suggested to the Emperor that he marry her off to me."

"Why is that?"

"Because the Emperor is holding her mother as one of his permanent guests."

"Do I even want to know what he is doing with her?"

"I don't even know precisely what he is doing with her, and no, I don't think you will want to know."

"What do you intend to do about it?"

"I will do what I can. As it stands, I cannot attack the Emperor. He will kill me."

"Why do you say that? Aren't you stronger than he is?"

"The Emperor may be old, but he is not weak. I am stronger than he is, but I have been weakened by my dependence on my respiration system. His favorite tool is that of Force Lightning, which he can utilize at a distance, and he could kill me, or at least incapacitate me well before I could get a blow in. I cannot attack him."

"You wouldn't have to do it by yourself," she said, and he looked at her for a long time before he responded.

"Leia, the only person that I can think of who would remotely be able to stand a chance against such a dark force is you, and I really haven't the time to train you."

She was silent, though he felt there was something she wanted to say. "I would like that, if you thought you could do it," she said finally, though he knew there was something else. He didn't want to pry, because their relationship was just getting to the point of being reasonably stable.

"I don't think it's a good idea right now, Princess. It would put you in too much danger."

She turned away from him. It had been the first thing he had ever refused her when she had asked him, but she saw the reason in it. "You are old enough now to make your own decisions. If you truly want to do this, we can."

"It would mean that we could spend more time together, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, it would require that. I will see what kind of creative arrangements we can make to start. You can start with meditation. Whatever works best for you; I never got particularly good at it."

She giggled. "I'll see what I can do about it. I think I can do some research to find some techniques."

* * *

Leia was excited by the talk she'd had with Vader. He had acknowledged that getting rid of the Emperor was a worthy and possibly attainable goal. He knew that training her was dangerous--and she knew it, too. But if they were careful, she would be safe enough. She had never been known to be Force-sensitive, and she was not from a Force-sensitive family.

She waited as Artoo encrypted the signal to Tatooine for her. Beru appeared on the screen before she'd been waiting for too long. "Hello, Leia. How are you today?"

"Fine, Aunt Beru," she said. Acknowledging her relationship with the Lars's had been much easier for her than her relationship with Vader. Aunt Beru was a lot nicer than Aunt Celly, anyway.

"You want to talk to Obi-Wan and Luke?"

Leia nodded. She wanted to talk to Beru, as well, but the encryptions would only maintain their modulation for so long. "Well, they are headed in. Obi-Wan has Luke doing something on the Dunes just beyond the Vaporators. How is your mission going?"

Leia sighed. Vader and his possible redemption was a sore subject for both of them. "Well enough, I think. That's what I want to talk about actually."

"I'll be happy to hear when you've finished," Beru told her fiercely.

"So will I, Aunt Beru."

Before Beru could say anything else, Luke and Obi-Wan appeared in the background. "I guess I'll let you talk to the boys, then," Beru said with a sigh. She'd had a tough time trying to connect with Beru and especially Owen. She'd never had an uncle; he was a mystery to her, but she tried. When she talked to Obi-Wan about it, he told her that it would come in its own time.

Luke appeared again, this time replacing Beru after having apparently gone to the kitchen. "Hi, Leia," he said, and Obi-Wan appeared just behind him.

"Hi," she greeted Luke happily.

"You seem cheerful today, Princess," Obi-Wan said.

"Maybe hopeful," she told him, "I think that the Countess is doing Vader as much good as I am."

Obi-Wan waited for her to explain herself further. The whole ordeal with the Countess had been recounted to the Jedi Master some time earlier, several months, in fact. His lack of comment about the subject had bothered her then, and it continued to do so.

"He's started to feel protective of her, I think. She told him that the Emperor has her mother captive."

"Oh, dear," he said finally, "I'm afraid that will make him do something reckless."

"Maybe he should be doing something reckless."

A pained look crossed Obi-Wan's face. "I don't want to think about what could be going through his head now."

"We talked a little about what it would take for him to overthrow the Emperor," Obi-Wan's silence prompted her to continue. "I asked him to train me, and he agreed."

"Leia, that is dangerous," he told her, alarmed.

"That's what he said."

"The recklessness of this endeavor is pure Skywalker," Obi-Wan said with a shake of his head, "You are too much like your father for your own good."

"But I think that's part of what will save him. He's come so far already. His love for me will help him to love himself," she laughed then, remembering his instructions to her. "He said I should learn to meditate."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at her. "Is he not going to teach you?"

"No, he said he was no good at it."

She heard a sound then that she thought she would never hear; Obi-Wan laughed. "You are right there. He spent time working on his fighter instead. He worked for more hours on starfighters than even Yoda would spend in meditation. I think he used the quiet as his meditation. Are you planning to come to the Outer Rim anytime soon?"

"In about two weeks. I'd planned to stop for two days on Tatooine while the mercy ships I'm taking went to Yavin. My itinerary was approved a couple of days ago."

"Mercy missions? Your mother would be proud. She would also probably have been right there with you."

"I know. She would have been such an amazing woman to have been able to know."

"She was, I agree. I wish she could have lived and seen the two of you grown. I know she would have been so proud."

"I asked Pooja if I could go home with her, and she agreed. I would like it if Luke could go as well."

"Your cousin? I think that would be safe enough so long as he doesn't use his own name," Obi-Wan said as he stroked his beard.

"What name could he use?"

"Lars," Luke said with a shrug. "It's common enough, and familiar enough to me, I think it would be ok."

She nodded biting her lip a little, "We would need to pick you up on the way out there. Do you think you could find your way to Alderaan by yourself?"

"I probably could figure out a way, but we don't have that kind of money, Leia."

"Don't worry about that, Luke. I can make sure you have enough money for that when I come out there in two weeks."

"Thanks, Leia," he said. She knew he didn't like relying on her generosity, but it occasionally came in handy. "Were you going to go, Ben?"

"No, I don't think that the planet of the Emperor will be safe for me. I will stay on Tatooine for the moment."

Artoo beeped that she needed to wrap up. "I have to go," she said, touching the screen. Luke put his fingers up against hers.

"Love you," he said.

"Love you, too," she said as the screen blanked out.


	6. Arrival on Naboo

**AN: Sorry that it's been like forever since I've updated anything. School is going to take up more time than I thought, and one of my teachers is going to be an incredible pain. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to like his class or not. We will see. **

Sidious Sith:** Sorry, but it's going to be longer. Maybe. I have a good portion of the first chapter worked up, but there are parts that are refusing to submit to my will and behave. Glad that you liked the last chapter, though I didn't put any of Palpatine in this chapter. I think I'm going to play catch up with that either next chapter or the one after, but it will be fun when I do. Torturing Vader is always fun. **

Jedi Knight 13:** Haven't heard from you in a while, and as I recall, you were one of my very first reviewers...Welcome back!**

phantom-jedi1:**What Artoo asked was "When are you going to fix Threepio like you promised" or something to that effect. Said fixing will take place this chapter. **

**Read On!**

* * *

Leia was relieved to be off Coruscant again. The trip to the Outer Rim, including two glorious days spent in the simple pursuits of learning a bit about the Force and her brother hadn't been enough to ease her discomfort; in fact it had only served to heighten her anxiety. Practicing meditation only made it worse. Practicing meditation meant touching the Force more easily, more readily; it meant touching, being acutely aware of the cloying darkness that pervaded Coruscant. _Oh, sorry, mighty Emperor. I forget that you call it Imperial Center._ Her father had never called it anything but Coruscant, so that was what she thought of it as.

"On our way, finally," Pooja said as she entered the small lounge of the Nubian vessel where Leia was sitting.

"Great," she said with more enthusiasm than she'd shown in weeks. When she had told her father that they were going to Naboo, he had been greatly upset by it, but he had relented when she said that Luke would be going. So she had told Pooja that her father had insisted upon sending a security escort with them.

"So tell me about this Luke we're supposed to pick up," Pooja said, sitting down next to her.

"I don't really know that there's that much to tell. He is Luke," she answered, not sure how much she wanted to reveal to her cousin.

"Well, what's he like?"

"He's kind of shy and quiet, except maybe when he's around me."

"How long have you known him?"

"You know, it seems like I've known him my entire life," she said, not mentioning that she'd only met him a few days after her eighteenth birthday, just under half a year previous. He was her twin and she _had_ known him all of her life, though she hadn't known it.

* * *

Luke had been able to obtain a flight with a strange pilot by the name of Han Solo. He seemed friendly enough, but there was something strange about him, some small stirring in the Force around him. Luke finally decided that there was some way in which the man was important, since he'd been able to tell that he was not Force-sensitive.

He settled his thoughts into place as the ramp lowered. He was to meet Bail Organa briefly, probably get some different clothes, and then met Leia at her ship when she landed.

Han hadn't believed that Luke Lars, an obvious native to Tatooine, would have any connection to the Viceroy of a planet, much less one as important as Alderaan. Luke humored him, just smiling knowingly, confident that the truth would prove him correct in the end. Han shifted restlessly as he saw a good number of guards waiting for them. Luke descended the ramp as though they didn't bother him, though in truth, they did bother him just as much as they were bothering Han. He started to look around for Leia's father, but he wasn't precisely sure what he would look like.

Bail came forward before Luke could pick him out of the crowd. He heard Han's footsteps behind him as Bail started to speak. "I trust you had a pleasant trip out, Luke?"

"Yes, Your Highness," he said with a small bow.

"I am afraid that we don't have much time for your briefing. Please come with me," Bail said, turning toward what was obviously his residence.

"Certainly," Luke answered, walking away from a stunned Han Solo.

* * *

Vader waited in his hyperbaric chamber as it slowly closed him off from the outside world. It was the only time he felt remotely human, and the last few months had made him feel more so; the contrast had sharpened. He felt the mechanism begin to remove his helmet, so he closed his eyes until his face was free. He allowed himself one luxury in his home on Coruscant that he had allowed himself nowhere else.

The drawing Leia had given him had been merely the beginning. He had obtained several holos of her, and more of Padmé. He marveled again as he looked at the pictures of the two of them. Leia looked so much like her mother, but she was so tiny! She was maybe just over a meter and a half, where he was, with the Emperor's adjustments, just over two meters tall. Secretly, he thought Palpatine had lost all shreds of sanity many years previously in his fight with Master Windu. He pushed the odd thought away, trying to actually sleep.

An uneasy, but peaceful rest came to him, as though he'd learned to control his demons, but hadn't fully confronted and banished them.

* * *

Bail was leery of the trip Leia had planned. The events of her eighteenth birthday had changed her a lot, and their relationship had changed with her. He'd been prepared for a fight with her over joining the Alliance, but she'd shown no interest in it, beyond a cursory knowledge of who was in it, and how they related to her.

Her birth father had become her obsession, for good or ill, he didn't yet know. And that scared him. He felt like he was losing the child he'd raised to the monster that had nearly killed her. Now he was helping her to get her brother to Naboo with her; Bail felt as though he barely knew Luke, or rather that he knew more _about_ Luke than he knew from him. He knew more about the boy than he knew what to do with, but looking into eyes like those that had once graced the face of Anakin Skywalker, and seeing a soul that was the reflection of Padmé Amidala, made him want to believe that she could do it, that she could save him.

"Do I look alright?" the voice that those blue eyes belonged to asked, bringing Bail back to reality.

"You look fine," Bail said after a quick examination. The uniform of Alderaan's Home Guard actually looked very good on the young farm boy. "Come on. Leia should be here in a few minutes."

They walked in silence back to the landing pad. Luke adopted a pose of stillness, though it was one of those things Jedi would do. Bail's senses told him the boy should have been fidgeting, that the uniform was more restrictive than anything he'd worn before.

The pilot who had brought Luke came up to them. "Hey, kid, when are you going home?"

Luke shrugged, "Leia didn't tell me."

Bail interceded before the pilot could blow his top. "They will need to be back to the Senate by the twelfth. You should be able to pick him up then."

"The rhythm of the Senate never really leaves you, does it, Dad?" Leia asked from behind them.

"Those Nubian ships are so quiet. I can see why the Naboo people still like them after all these years," Bail said as she wrapped her arms around him. He looked into her eyes as she let him go. Never had she looked more like her mother, but the flame that burned behind her eyes was intense, far more than he had ever seen from her before. And he knew exactly where it came from, too. Her birth father had been the most intense person Bail had ever had the dubious pleasure of meeting.

"Luke," she said, more of a sigh than a word, and he watched the two of them interacting for the first time. It was odd in its own way. Had he not known their status to one another, and known that they knew it, he would have said that it looked like the reunification of two lovers. It was beautiful to watch, like two stars uniting in the sky.

"See you in three weeks, kid," the pilot that had brought Luke told him with a pat on his back as he disengaged himself from Leia's embrace.

"Thanks, Han," Luke said, draping a protective arm around his sister's shoulder, and then addressed her, "Let's not keep Senator Naberrie waiting."

"Ok," she agreed with a smile, and they walked together to the shiny silver ship.

"Wow," the pilot, Han, said.

"What?" Bail inquired gently.

"Kid like that, seemed like the type who's never left home, ya know, wide-eyed and a particular kind of innocence, and being from Tatooine, you usually don't find many well-connected people there, at least not up-and-up connections, anyway."

Bail considered how much he should tell the man, and decided that partial truths would serve the purpose for the moment. Nothing that could be taken as an outright lie later, but nothing that could lead the man anywhere if he chose to pursue the information, and so he said, "I knew his parents. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father is a prisoner of the Empire. Tatooine was safer than just about any other place for Luke."

"Poor kid," Han said sympathetically. "My mother died when I was real young, and my father, well, I don't even think he stuck around long enough to know about me."

"Yet you have distinguished yourself," he said, indicated the stripe running down his pant leg, a Corellian Bloodstripe.

"Yeah, well, it's easy enough to do things that ought to get you killed when you ain't got nothing to live for."

"There is wisdom and a good bit of truth in what you say," Bail said as the Nubian ship took off from the landing pad.

Han chuckled. "No one's ever accused me of being wise before."

Bail laughed. He thought he might actually like this Corellian pilot, if he were given half a chance.

* * *

Vader woke from his rest, looking wonderingly again at his family. _His family._ There was something now that he had, something that belonged solely to him that he would never let the Emperor touch. A smile, a small barely existent thing, forced to be small by a lack of use of those muscles, and the damaged tissue that pulled his face in odd directions appeared on his face. Leia's existence gave him something he'd thought lost forever, hope.

She wished to be trained in the ways of the Force, though she hadn't yet made time for that. Meditation was taking up some of her time, he was sure. She was an enthusiastic learner, the way that he could be at some things. She was also trying to make the galaxy a better place, in spite of the Emperor's wish for it to be a gloomy place of no hope and no joy.

She was stronger than he was. It took him a long moment to admit that to himself, but once he did, he felt release; the galaxy wouldn't fall apart if he said he couldn't do something. The Emperor might proclaim it so, but it didn't mean that it really would. Peace settled over him for a moment before he realized that he had been promising Artoo for months that he would fix Threepio's memory, and he didn't really have anything that couldn't be put off until the next day. Maybe once he had Threepio's memory fixed, the droid could tell Leia stories about him and Padmé whenever she wanted. With a purpose, he began the process of becoming Vader; he would be busy that day, but it would be a very, very good thing.

* * *

Leia was happy, happier than she could ever remember being before. Half of the trip to Naboo she spent talking with Pooja about Luke, and the other half, with Luke, mostly just quietly enjoying his presence. Pooja seemed to be of the opinion that she was denying her feelings about Luke. She'd nearly slipped in exasperation once.

"Pooja, he's…like a brother to me. He's always been there for me, but I could never see him as anything more than that."

He had told her that Pooja cornered him once, asking him how long he had known her. Luke had told Pooja that they'd known one another all their lives and that seemed to satisfy their cousin's curiosity.

She had completely lost interest in Luke when she'd asked him how old he was. He hadn't laughed at her then, but he did when he told Leia later while Pooja was asleep. By nature, both of them were night owls, and Pooja was, it seemed, a morning person.

They had slept half of the trip to Naboo, having only stopped on Alderaan long enough to pick Luke up, and though Pooja had been up for a couple of hours, Luke and Leia entered the cockpit only just in time for the reversion to realspace. "Well, I was afraid that I was going to have to try to wake the two of you up. We're nearly there," she said as she turned back to the controls. An alarm started, the one to alert passengers to the eminent reversion from hyperspace.

"Looks like we're just in time," Luke commented as the two of them strapped in, "do you always pilot yourself?"

"Not usually, but Leia is a good pilot, and I feel comfortable enough doing it if I have someone backing me. I guess I'm not as good of a pilot as Aunt Padmé, but it's ok. If I'm even half as good as she was at everything she did, I would count myself lucky."

Leia looked over at Luke, and both of them were silent, neither of them knowing quite what to say to Pooja without revealing themselves to her. Finally, Leia said, "Why don't you tell us more about her? She sounds like an amazing woman from everything I've heard."

Pooja laughed, "Your dad, he was one of her friends in the Senate."

"I think so," Leia said, though she knew it to be true.

"Aunt Padmé mentioned him once or twice when she was home, though that wasn't often during the Clone Wars. She was a staunch supporter of democracy, peaceful negotiations, the Jedi; anything that was good and right with the galaxy. When she was Queen, before I was born, the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo, in protest of something or another, I don't remember, and I don't think it was important in the grand scheme of things anyway. Two Jedi were sent to help her. One of them gave his life in the battle that followed.

"There was a boy with them, not yet a Jedi, who shot down the droid control ship, saving hundreds of lives. He was a hero for Naboo from that day forward, his name was Anakin Skywalker. Aunt Padmé remained friends with the Jedi, and with Skywalker, who became that man's apprentice."

She shook her head sadly. "Aunt Padmé never really did know when to back down, though. I was four and Ryoo was six when she started receiving death threats so serious that the Jedi were called in to investigate. She came home, to be safer, I think. That was the first and only time that I met Anakin Skywalker; he had been sent to protect her from harm while his master sought her would-be killers. I think the war started only weeks after that, but I don't really remember. I was seven when the war ended, and with the end of the Clone Wars, Aunt Padmé, too, was gone. I think news of her death even came on the same day that peace was declared throughout the galaxy. No one really knows what happened. Some people say that she died of a broken heart, pining for the lover that she lost to the war; some say that she killed herself, probably for about the same reason; and a lot of people think that she was killed by one of the Empire's agents, like Darth Vader, because she wouldn't have cooperated with their new regime," Pooja concluded. As she did so, the ship touched down on one of Theed's main landing pads. She turned to the two of them and smiled. "Come on, I'll introduce you to my parents. I saw them waiting as we landed."

The twins exchanged another look as the followed their cousin out to meet more of their family. The ramp lowered, and Leia paused for a moment as Pooja exited. She felt Luke's hand squeeze her shoulder as he put his arm around her comfortingly. She looked up at him and flashed him a smile before she exited as well. She'd left her hair down, and the fact that it was straight, not wavy like either of her parents' did help her to look a bit less like Padmé. There was little more that she could do to adjust her appearance without Pooja noticing, but there were some things that she could emphasize that were different from her mother, so she did try.

She looked back at Luke as she descended the ramp, turning her head forward as she got close to the bottom. Her eyes first found her Aunt Sola's, and from the look on her face, she decided that she hadn't done enough to make herself look less like her mother. She put on her best Senatorial smile and went to greet her aunt and uncle, Luke only a couple of steps behind her.

"Mom, Dad, this is Leia Organa," Pooja said, making introductions. "She's the youngest person ever elected to the Senate. And this is Luke Lars, the escort Prince Organa has kindly provided."

"Hello, dear," Sola said to her, "welcome to Naboo."

"Thank you, Mrs. Naberrie. It was so kind of you to offer your home to us," Leia said, taking the hand Sola offered her in both of hers.

"Really, it was no problem," their uncle answered, "I'm Darred, by the way. As much as I get forgotten, I almost think I don't exist some days," he said jokingly. He had an easy smile and a gentle manner, and Leia liked him instantly.

She smiled again, this time a genuine smile. "I'm sure you aren't forgotten on purpose."

"I doubt it," he agreed, then turned to Luke, "What about you?"

"What about me?" he asked with the air of someone who hadn't expected to speak.

"Where are you from, and what do you do?"

"Oh. I'm from a very small town, and I help my uncle with the farm when I'm not chasing Princesses about the galaxy," he said, making Darred laugh.

"So do you not live with your parents?"

"I was orphaned by the Clone Wars."

"I'm sorry. At least you had family to take you in."

"Yes, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have been very kind to me," he said, and the conversation died down as they started toward the speeder.

Pooja picked up the conversation in the lull. "Is Ryoo going to be home at all?"

"She has arranged to be home the last couple of days that you are here," Darred answered, "but I think she wants to spend most of her time here with your grandmother. She isn't doing well."

"Oh," Leia said, "perhaps we should go visit her to cheer her up."

"Do you really think you would enjoy that, Leia?" Pooja asked.

"I do," she said firmly. "My grandparents died before I was born, so I…"

Pooja laughed, "It's ok, you can borrow my grandparents for a while. What about you, Luke?"

He sighed, but answered, "Grandmother died before the Clone Wars, and Grandfather about a year later. I don't know much about my mother's parents."

"So is that a yes?" Pooja asked.

"I would enjoy meeting your grandparents."

"Oh, Mom, why don't we just have dinner out there tonight? I think that would probably be easier, don't you?" Pooja asked.

"I think that Mom and Dad would probably be ok with that," Sola agreed, and with that, they set off for the house that Jobal and Ruwee Naberrie had shared for nearly fifty years.

* * *

Artoo twittered excitedly as Vader was explaining the facts of life to Threepio. He would be shut off for the procedure, and he should retain all of the memories that he had gained since he'd been memory-wiped, but he would regain the memories that he'd had previous. Threepio was quite nervous about the whole thing, but Vader had assured him that the whole procedure consisted of connecting two wires to a backup memory storage device in his torso. The longest part would be getting to the two wires to get them hooked up. It was with some trepidation that he shut the droid off. It had been years since he had worked on this particular droid, and Threepio, like Artoo, had a special place in his heart. He didn't want to end up doing any damage to him, and so he knew that he needed to be careful.

Vader removed the first panel, and he and Artoo began to carefully move and remove wires that were in their way. "I'm not sure I can do this anymore, Artoo, I'm getting old."

Artoo beeped at him. "I do _not_ sound like Obi-Wan."

The beeping and banter continued until the memory box was visible. Artoo whistled his concern about the object. It hadn't been in prime condition when it had been installed, and thirty-some-odd years inside Threepio hadn't improved its condition. "I think it is fine. You know he didn't get any new parts at all until he came to Coruscant with us the first time."

Artoo whistled concernedly again. "You can test the power flows and see if it seems to be working correctly."

Artoo complied, beeping with surprise when the thing seemed functional. "I told you."

They then worked to find the right wires. "They are aqua, Artoo."

Artoo beeped. "No, those were brown. I didn't have enough of the aqua wire to do anything other than this."

Artoo beeped again, causing Vader to consider for a moment. "Well, those will look newer, then won't they? And the ones we are looking for won't be attached to anything."

They set about finding the wires, and did so rather easily. They were the only wires still hanging loose inside Threepio, as though no one who had effected any repairs on him had known either what they were or why they were there. Artoo beeped a query. "Yes, they have an order, but it won't be hard. The one is longer, and they only just fit."

He indicated the two holes that were to hold the wires, and Artoo set about attaching them. Once that was done, Vader glanced at the clock. "We'd better hurry. I don't think Threepio will appreciate having been deactivated for ten hours, since it took us five to take him apart."

Artoo beeped something that included a raspberry. "It's not my fault he's like this. I think he was defective before I got a hold of him."

Artoo beeped to himself as he set about the task of reattaching all the wires that they had taken off to get to his core, and Vader watched.

* * *

Ruwee Naberrie had been through his share of surprises in his 76 years, but nothing had prepared him for his younger daughter's twins walking through the door. He had suspected from the day that her body had been brought to Naboo that the baby hadn't died. He had suspected the father of that child to have been Anakin Skywalker, who seemed to be the only person constantly in her life, and the only person that she might have had a relationship with for whom he had a reasonable explanation as to why she hadn't said anything about it. The Purges would have made it dangerous for children of Jedi, not that there would have been many of them. Even if she had given birth, the children would have needed to be hidden. His suspicion was that had she lived, she wouldn't have come home at all.

He rocked back and forth in his chair, in the common room, as they entered the front door, across the room from him. "Well," he said slowly as he evaluated his new guests, "What have we here?"

"This is Leia, a friend of mine from the Senate, and her guard, Luke," Pooja answered him.

He harrumphed his disbelief of their story. "I'd wager he's far more to her than simply her guard," he said, eyeing his youngest granddaughter critically.

"He is my best friend, and like a brother to me," Leia said quietly. It was as close to an acknowledgment as he was likely to get out of her. He nodded, confident now that Leia knew her status. Whether she had told Pooja or Sola remained to be seen.

"They both seemed really interested in meeting you, Grandfather," Pooja volunteered. "Luke told us that he didn't have grandparents growing up, and Leia didn't either."

She didn't know. The son of a politician, father of another, grandfather of two more, could tell from experience born out of self-defense that she didn't know. She might suspect, but no one had confirmed her suspicions for her. "Well, it seems that my grandchildren are all grown now, but it will be good to have young ones about again," he said, closing the topic. He turned to Pooja as he got up. "The way your sister has been talking, I may actually live to see some of my great-grandchildren born."

"Grandfather!"

"Grandfather, nothing, Pooja. Someone has to continue the Naberrie line," he said as he shuffled into the kitchen.

"Nobody _has_ to," Pooja protested.

"You are correct. It is not absolutely necessary for you to bring children into this world, but Naberrie women have always done well in politics. The galaxy needs more souls like you up there running things."

Pooja shook her head at him. "You are worse than Grandmother some days."

His eyes twinkled merrily as he answered her. "Where do you think she learned it from?"

She closed her eyes and smiled, having learned many years ago that even Aunt Padmé hadn't been able to win an argument with him. "What do you want for dinner, Grandfather?"

"Oh, don't worry about dinner. I put a stew on this morning. I was going to put some back for when I didn't feel quite so chipper, but I can do that some other time."

"Is Grandmother doing ok today?"

"I think so. She's up, at least. Why don't you go see her?"

"Ok," Pooja agreed, and turned to her mother. "Mom, did you want to go see Grandmother?"

Sola nodded, "Are you two coming?" she asked the twins.

"We'll be up in a minute," Leia said, "I would like to see this stew. Cooking has always fascinated me because I really can't do it well."

"Alright, then," Sola said, and she and Pooja went upstairs, lost in conversations about the last senate session, Coruscant, and catching up in general.

After he checked on the stew, Ruwee turned to his two younger grandchildren, stern, demanding, and said, "Well, now. As the truth is plain for anyone with eyes, we will dispense with all this nonsense."

The twins looked at each other, both with nearly identical looks of surprise on their young faces.

He softened his tone, and said, "You aren't in trouble. I understand why it was necessary to hide the truth of things, and why it is still necessary. You both know don't you?" they nodded mutely, in unison. It was rather eerie, actually, how much alike the two of them were, despite the differences in the way that they looked. "Well, then. Thought it was time to meet me, did you?"

"Yes, Grandfather," Leia said, nearly in tears from the sadness she was feeling for all that had been taken from her by the Emperor.

He gathered her tiny frame into a hug, sharing her regret in full measure. Luke was accepted into the hug as well after he finally gave in to the same regrets. His hands brushed each of their cheeks gently as he moved back from them a little. "You'd better get upstairs before my daughter gets too curious for her own good. I don't know where she would possibly get that from," he said with a smile.

"What's wrong with Grandmother?" Luke asked.

Ruwee shook his head. "She's dying. She's been like this off and on since Padmé died," he answered, sighing, "Burying a child is very hard on a parent, and I think she took it harder than most."

Not knowing what to say to him, they were quiet and he watched as his twin grandchildren ascended the stairs to meet their grandmother.


	7. Memories of Mom Everywhere

* * *

**peppymint: C-3P0 isn't as attached to Luke as he would have been in the original series; he was there at the birth, and then he briefly met Luke when they went to Tatooine, so he's got a good idea as to what's happened to Luke, and I'm not sure whether or not to do anything with Luke and Threepio just yet...maybe. We'll see. He's got pretty strict orders from Bail as to what he can and can't discuss with anyone, and Artoo as well, though Artoo is starting to come around, and see that Vader still has all of Anakin's recklessness inside himself.**

**ElusiveMaverick:Here is update, and more to be coming...thanks for the help you've given me so far!**

**PhantomSith: :) Glad you could join in. Hope this keeps you happy...**

**Thanks everyon for supporting this story, and now that we're back on track, hope that you continue to enjoy!**

* * *

Leia opened the door quietly, not quite knowing how she knew which door to open, but she did.

"Ah, there you are. I was afraid Dad was going to talk your ear off," Sola said with a twinkle in her eye.

"No," she answered with a smile, "I like him."

Sola turned to her mother, "Mom," she said gently, "Pooja brought friends from the Senate to meet you."

Leia felt Luke right behind her then, almost close enough to touch. "Hello, Mrs. Nabarrie," she said.

"Padmé?" their grandmother asked, clearly not seeing the person in front of her, rather, it seemed, a memory of her mother. "Is that you? They said you died, I didn't believe them."

Leia didn't know how to answer, and looked to her aunt, who shrugged, not able to help her out of a situation she'd willingly gone into.

"You even have that necklace you got while you were queen," she continued, her fingers lightly touching the object in question. "I remember how you loved that necklace. You always wore it. I didn't believe it when they told me that you'd lost it somewhere, when they said you died."

She suddenly knew what to say, how to make her grandmother feel better. "It's going to be ok, Mom. It's like that that time I went up to the Lake Country, the assassination attempts, remember?"

"I remember, baby. You had that nice Jedi Padawan with you. He protected you quite well, but what was his name?"

Leia tilted her head, listening to the Force, rather than what was going on around her. "Anakin," she said with a small giggle, "And he's a Knight now."

"Is he? Well, I remember hearing how all the Jedi died out some time ago," she said, her gaze clearing a bit, seeming to see more of what was actually going on, or at least be closer to interacting with the present.

"Not all the Jedi, Mom."

"No? Well, that's a relief," Jobal said, and she stood up, rather shakily, and hugged Leia to herself. "When did you get your hair straightened, Padmé?"

The presence or understanding she was getting from the Force left then. She pulled out of her grandmother's embrace. "It's always been straight."

The look on her face crumbled, "You aren't my Padmé, then are you?"

Leia shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Jobal shook her head seeming to come back fully to the reality the rest of them were living in. "You look like my Padmé, so much," she said, stroking Leia's hair. "How old are you, child?"

"I was born on Empire Day, eighteen years ago."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Leia nodded. "My name is Leia, by the way."

"Leia, you are Padmé's daughter, I am sure of it."

"It's not safe to say such things, Mom," Sola said, tears flowing freely as she realized that her mother was right.

Pooja, for her part looked like she was torn between believing, and disbelief at what she'd just heard Leia saying to her grandmother. "How did you know what to say to Grandma?"

Leia shook her head. "I don't know, it just felt right."

"Your mother was speaking to you," Jobal pronounced. She noticed Luke then. "I see you have your own protector, just as your mother did."

"Luke," she said, laying her hand on his arm.

"You have the look of your father," Jobal told him. No one bothered to correct her this time. "Except that I remember him being taller when he was your age."

"Mom?"

"Sola, my grandbabies didn't die when my baby did," she said, her joy quite apparent.

"Mom, you have to calm down. You know that the Empire has agents all over Naboo. We are under constant surveillance. It's not safe to say anything about Padmé and especially about the father of her children?" the last word became a question, which received a short nod from the twins.

Jobal sat down, smiling. "It is well known that I have lost my mind. I doubt sometimes that even Ruwee listens to me rambling," she said putting her hand on Leia's arm, since she was rather close. "I suppose it's easier to live in a memory that you love than in a reality you hate."

The full effect of their visit started to become clear. Their grandmother had been dying from the pain of having to bury not only her daughter, but also the grandchild that she'd been carrying, one who had supposedly never even drawn breath. Their presence had eased that pain back, and given her hope. It had made reality tolerable for her again, and maybe even made her want to live.

* * *

Pooja was shocked at what had transpired when Leia had met her grandmother. She looked at the young Senator, wondering at this incredible news. They were cousins, and so was Luke, and she was the living legacy of Padmé Amidala, even more than Pooja herself was, though people said such things. Now she knew, at least some of the reason why Leia often consulted her on issues within the Senate, though she'd been careful to be casual about it. _Their_ grandmother got up, and headed down the stairs for dinner, carefully escorted by Luke. Her mother followed, leaving the two girls alone for a few moments.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Pooja asked, tears threatening.

"For the same reason I wasn't told until I turned eighteen, and if my father had any say in the matter, I wouldn't have been told at all," Leia answered, and the heavy emotions of the day finally taking their toll on her, the tears that were in Leia's eyes as well started to fall in force.

"So why did he tell you?"

"Vader, he said something, something that made me ask questions until I got answers," she said, and Pooja looked at her with a bit of worry.

"He has killed many, many people, Leia. He's not a being to be trifled with."

"He's not…" she closed her eyes and sighed. "He could be helpful, I think. I can talk to him in a way that no one else can."

Pooja wasn't sure exactly how to answer her. "He killed your parents, Leia."

"I know, it seems that way," she said, not knowing how much Pooja did already or should know, but decided finally that she deserved most of the truth. "My father is alive, though, and my mother died in childbirth, no one killed her," she admitted finally, and Pooja looked at her curiously. "I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about any of it, though," she said, answering the question in her eyes.

They were both quiet for a moment, and Pooja wrapped her arms around Leia and they both cried for the lives that they could have had, the years that they could have spent together. "Come on, before someone starts worrying about us," Pooja said, and they exited the room, headed for the 'fresher, cleaning up quickly before going to dinner with the rest of the family.

* * *

Vader went to the Countess's apartment. It was part of the routine that they'd fallen into. Each night he would show up once he'd finished whatever he was doing for the day, and they would have a short discussion, and he would leave. Sometimes he visited Leia before, sometimes after, though usually not at all, and she was more often than not off planet anyway. At the moment, the Senate was on break for 'trips to the constituencies' and other such nonsense.

She was waiting for him when he rang the chime, and she let him in. "Hello," she said, waiting for him to say something so she could judge his mood before she decided what to say to him.

"Hello," he said, not really wanting to play games that night. It was kind of a signal of a middle mood for him, not happy, but not angry, or depressed. She nodded, and they went inside.

He settled onto her sofa, prepared to spend his evening looking over reports, but she apparently had something else in mind. "Do you mind if we talk?"

He put his reports aside, but not far. He hoped she wouldn't take long. "That would be acceptable."

"What is it that you do every night when you're here, anyway?" she asked, more direct with him than she usually allowed herself to be.

"I read the reports that my battle group sends me, since I am here on Coruscant on the order of the Emperor."

"But that gives you an opportunity to spend time with Leia, doesn't it?"

"It does, at least while Senate is in session."

"And it's not right now," she sighed.

"That is correct. It will be two weeks before she's back."

"Where is she?"

"She and her cousin went to Alderaan, and are going to Naboo."

"Isn't Naboo restricted?"

"Yes, normally, but not for certain people. Pooja is one of those people."

"Pooja Nabberie?"

"Yes," he said slowly.

"I met her at that Senatorial Ball you drug me to when I first got here."

"Oh," he replied, remembering that Pooja had been standing with Leia and Winter, "Well, she is my wife's niece."

"You don't talk about her much."

"I don't talk about anything much. It isn't conducive to my longevity when dealing with the Emperor."

"Why do you let him run your life this way?" she asked. Yes, something had definitely gotten into her.

"He is the Emperor. It is the only way. He is in charge," he said, and it sounded forced, even to him.

"He's not going to live forever."

"It is not in his plans to die."

"Can he do that?" her question evidenced the horror any sane person would have at the thought, the horror even he was beginning to have at the Emperor's plans.

"I believe it is possible with the Force to extend one's life beyond its normal limits."

"Has he taught you this?"

"There are many things that he does not teach me. My disabilities limit me significantly," he said, and it felt like he was being forced to relive the day on Mustafar when he was physically transformed from human to Sith machine.

"What are your disabilities? You've never told me."

"Just before Leia was born, I was…" he paused, thinking how to word what he needed to tell her. He decided there was no reason to involve her in the details of the worst day of his life, and, as it turned out, the best. It had been the day Leia was born. "There was an accident. I lost all of my limbs, and I was burned horribly. I barely survived, and the damage to my lungs necessitates this suit."

"Oh," she said, then was silent for a while. "I'm sorry."

He was quiet, studying her as he hadn't yet taken the opportunity to do, "It was a long time ago, and the past belongs where it is."

She nodded. "So it does," she said, and she got up and went to another room. Vader presumed she was done with him, and picked up his datapad, beginning to go over his reports. She returned with some handicraft, something Padmé would have never had the time for nor the patience, but she was not Padmé. She was too delicate, too much a person of the courts, not useful for anything but politics and intrigue, to be her equal. She was also much too young.

She might have been someone Padmé would have liked, someone she would have taken under her wing, molding her into the kind of person that could stand up and fight for what they believed in. No, she was not a fighter, this girl. That didn't mean she wasn't strong, but it wasn't the kind of strength he was used to dealing with. His mother had been gifted both types. She fought when she could, and bore what she couldn't fight. But it was hard on her, the not fighting. He could see that even at nine.

Even when he'd had no basis of comparison he could see the life of slavery was very hard on his mother, that she'd been forced to adopt the quiet strength of someone who simply bore the life she was given and nothing more. It made him feel a bit sad for the Countess, but at the same time he found it to be relieving. She would not cross the Emperor's will, and she would not stand out, for that was what standing up for one's self could do. She was not Leia, and he would never have to fear for her safety for something that she did to jerk the Emperor's chains. He was afraid for Leia, sometimes. She was outspoken, brash, prepared to fight with every fiber of her being for what she thought was right, and she had a long list. As long as the one her mother had. She was his daughter; he couldn't deny it, even if he had wanted to. Her sense of justice was his, as was her willingness to fight in whatever manner was necessary to get done what she wanted done. Her political leanings, her sense of duty to her people, those were traits she'd inherited from her mother, and he loved her in spite of those things, as he had Padmé, or perhaps it was because of the things that reminded him of her mother that made him love Leia more. Not that there really could have been a 'more' once he found out exactly who she was. There was nothing more fierce in his soul than the love he carried as a father, since he could no longer be a husband.

This brought his thoughts back to his present, and the woman whose company he was keeping, because the Emperor ordered it. Neither of them was particularly interested in the marital arrangements. Palpatine had hired the best wedding planners to be had; they had consulted with the 'happy' couple only once, and since they were the best, all arrangements had been settled in that meeting, to his knowledge. She might still be required for input, but it had been made abundantly clear that Vader did not have the patience to spend more than an hour with the officious people Palpatine had saddled them with.

He sighed, grumbling to himself, trying to settle his mind so that he could focus on the report in front of him. Tion had lost the thin traces of the Rebellion that he could glean from the various sources that were available to him. He did not have the Force to tell him which lead to track down, and so he didn't have the ability that Vader had to discard leads in mass quantity and follow the few that actually held any sort of promise. He doubted even his presence would have made the search much more fruitful, but the fact that he was stuck on Coruscant instead of doing something, even if it proved to be something useless, was frustrating. He was certain that his Master intended it to be, but he couldn't help being frustrated by it.

Perhaps there was something he could do to alleviate the frustration, but he was loathe to attempt meditation, and he had no design projects that he needed to be finishing, but perhaps he could start on a new one. There was also a fighter bay for the troops on Coruscant, and he could begin modifications on one of the fighters there; that sort of project had always been his substitute for meditation when he had been a Knight.

* * *

Luke was happy to get to know his mother's family, though it was rather disconcerting; they were more formal than he was used to. Even Leia was somewhat stiff around these people, he could see it wearing on her, so he suggested that they go out by themselves.

"Where do you want to go?"

"If you don't think we'll get lost, we could go into Theed," he suggested.

"Do you have somewhere in mind?" she asked, looking at him in the mirror as she arranged her hair.

He closed his eyes for a moment. She already knew him much too well for him to sneak this past her. "I thought we could go to the memorial."

"Sola would have our heads. You know how paranoid she is."

"Well, she doesn't exactly have to know where we are going. Tell her that you are going shopping, and want me along."

"So you'll go shopping with me?"

"If you want to, we can do that while we are out," he said.

She sighed, letting him talk her into doing it, for truly she wanted to be doing just that as well, even if she wouldn't admit it to anyone but him. "Alright."

They went to the dining room, and found their aunt there. "Hello," Sola said.

"Hello, Mrs. Naberrie," Leia said. "I thought I might do a bit of shopping today, if that is ok?"

"I wouldn't want you out alone," she said.

"Luke can go with me. He is here to be my bodyguard."

"So he is. Very well," she said. "I trust that the two of you can stay out of trouble."

"We can," she said with finality.

"Alright, dear. Have a good time," she said, "I'll see you this afternoon?"

"Yes, we should be home this afternoon," she agreed, "Well before dinner, I'm sure."

"Good. If you need anything, you know the number to the house, but I will go check on Mom and Dad sometime today, so if you can't reach me here, you can reach me there."

"Alright," Leia agreed. They left the house, free for a time. She giggled, not used to having nothing to do, and it making her slightly giddy.

"What?" Luke asked, smiling at her.

"Just that I'm not used to wasting time like this," she said.

"Time you enjoy wasting isn't wasted."

"Like you know," she told him with a shove.

"I know how to enjoy myself when I'm not working."

"Alright, so where are we headed?"

"Well," he said as they got into the speeder that Leia had rented so that her Aunt and Uncle wouldn't have to drive them everywhere. "The shopping district is in the center of Theed, and we can start there, then if there's anything else you want to see, we can do that after, then head back," he said, "It will be easier, I think, if we start with the shopping."

She giggled again, at his attempts at subterfuge. He wasn't good at it yet, though he was trying. "Alright, shopping, then a tour of the city's sights, maybe? It's not often that anyone gets invited to Naboo anymore."

They rode in comfortable silence until they entered the city. "Well, Princess, what do you think?" he asked as they began to pass shops.

"Maybe that one," she said pointing to one. It turned out to be a dress shop.

"As you wish," he said, and they stopped, parking nearby.

They walked side-by-side to the shop, and he held the door for her. She smiled at him and stepped inside, and they were immediately greeted by a very small older woman. "Hello, dearie, what are you looking for?"

"I was just looking around," she said.

"Hmmm," the woman said, looking her over. "You would do well in something in darker colors. I know it is not the current style, but it would suit you. White does well enough, but a deep burgundy would do much better."

"You really think so?" she asked.

She looked thoughtfully at Leia for a moment. "I think I have something that might suit. I will have to look, I have not been in the far reaches of my shop for a month or so, but I think I have something that will suit you very, very well, you have the bone structure for it. Wait here," the shopkeeper instructed them.

"This could be interesting," Luke said, sitting down in a bank of chairs that were on one side of the shop. There was a large mirror behind him, and the wall opposite him was covered in mirrors. She sat down beside him after considering it for a moment.

"She is a dressmaker, though I've never had one quite so eccentric."

"Maybe it's because she lives on Naboo," Luke said, and smiled.

* * *

Leia was about to say something to him when the woman came back. "What do you think of this?" The dress was gorgeous, and she put her hand onto the delicate velvet fabric, feeling how soft it was. "You can try it on, and if you like it, I would sell it to you."

"I would like to try it on," she said. "Would you not sell this dress to most people?" she asked as they headed into the dressing room.

"Oh, no. This is a special dress. I've had it for probably longer than you've been alive. It was specifically ordered for one of the more special residents of Naboo, but she died before I got a chance to ship it to her," the woman said as she helped Leia out of the dress she was wearing.

"What was her name?"

"Oh, Amidala. She was one of the most loved, still is, in fact, one of the most loved people who ever graced the throne of Naboo. You remind me of her. I am getting old, I think, and sentimental," she said, helping Leia tie the bodice in the back. "You are a bit shorter than Amidala, but other than that, it fits you quite well. Would you like to see it in the big mirror?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, and she carefully picked up the full skirt, holding it up above her ankles. The little dressmaker brought a short stool, and instructed her to stand on it.

The image in the mirror as she turned and looked was much like the one she'd seen in her histories of the birth of the Empire, the Clone Wars. She gasped as she realized how much she truly did look like her mother. "Yes, breathtaking isn't it?" the dressmaker said, "Amidala was my favorite customer, and she would have looked stunning in this. I wish I could have seen her wear it, but it wasn't to be. Do you want this dress, Senator Organa?"

"I would like it," she said, wondering that this woman kept up with the politics of Coruscant.

"Very well, child. I would like to take measurements to get this adjusted to your figure, for the former Queen of Naboo you are not," she said as Leia nodded her agreement, looking at the image staring back at her.

"Did you make many dresses for Queen Amidala?"

"No, I am not the royal tailor, but once she was simply a Senator, much as you are, yes, I made a great deal of her formal clothing. I was one of the few trusted with the secret of her pregnancy before it was revealed with her death. That poor child," she said, pinning the skirt in a fashion to accommodate Leia's shorter height. "Dying with her mother. No one deserves to not even have started their life when they die. Jamillia just faded into the background after her term, as most of our monarchs do, she was the one elected after Amidala. Apailana, she would have been a wonderful woman to work for, I think, she died two years into her term, but she did do one very outstanding thing. She did not permit investigations into Senator Amidala's death. It was hard enough on our people that her death happened, she was so young, twenty-eight, and with child besides. It was only silliness that those who wanted to know more were pushing for it. It was a hard time on Naboo then anyway. We didn't need to be causing pain to ourselves like that."

The woman nattered constantly while she was adjusting the dress to suit her. "Well, dear let's get you out of this, and we can discuss more pleasant things."

Leia nodded, tearing her eyes from the image in the mirror, and following the dressmaker back to the dressing room.

* * *

Vader went to Leia's apartment again to check and see how Threepio was adjusting to his memory having been returned. He suspected that it wasn't going as well as it would have if the droid hadn't come with the fatalist attitude. He wasn't sure exactly where it had come from, and he hadn't been able to get rid of it, not in the fifteen years he'd tinkered with the droid, before he'd become Vader. It was somewhat frustrating that he couldn't remove the most annoying quirk that the droid had, but it remained to be seen whether that would interfere with his current mission, which was to bring his memory back into accessible form. It shouldn't be too difficult, now that his backup memory was correctly hooked up for retrieval.

He rang the chime, and as expected, Threepio answered the door. "Oh, no," he cried out, and shuffled away from the doorway. Vader stepped inside.

"Threepio."

"Yes, Lord Vader?" the droid asked uncertainly.

"I have come to ascertain whether you are adjusting properly to the modifications that I made to your systems."

"Yes, sir, I believe so, sir. It is rather disconcerting to remember not remembering, and now to remember, but I do think I am getting along quite nicely."

"Do you remember your Maker?"

"Yes, sir. I remember Master Anakin quite fondly. He was not around after he won that race, that race that scared his mother so, but I do remember that he came back, when his mother died."

"That is correct, and do you remember what happened after that?"

"Oh, yes, sir. The Clone Wars. Such an awful, absolutely dreadful time. I stayed with Miss Padmé then, and R2-D2 went with Master Anakin, to watch over him for Miss Padmé."

"What else do you remember?"

"A number of things, Lord Vader, but I am still sorting through everything. It is difficult to place the memories of nearly sixteen years in order in the course of a few days."

"Very well, you are at least progressing. Have Artoo summon me if you have any sort of failure in your memory system."

Threepio did not look happy at the prospect, if a machine could be said to be happy or not. "Yes, sir."

* * *

Luke was glad when they left the dress shop, after measuring Leia, the woman had shown her voluminous books that had fabric samples in them, and the two of them spent at least an hour discussing the various fabrics, and the ways that they could be combined and the like. The dressmaker's name, they eventually found out was Diol Recanthra, which meant nothing to him, but it obviously impressed Leia a great deal. "Well, do you want to do any more shopping?"

"No, I'm quite finished," Leia said. "Maybe we can see the waterfalls?"

"Waterfalls?" Luke asked, fighting to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"They are by the Palace," she said, pointing to a fairly large structure that towered above the rest of the city. He headed in the direction she indicated, but they were unable to access the Palace directly, instead finding a wandering path around to the other side of it, and there was a strange, steady roaring sound as they approached the Palace. "Stop," she said finally as the street they were on turned away from the field that it skirted.

"What?"

"Can't you hear it?"

"I can hear something, but I don't know what it is."

"Come on," she said, with the gleam of mischief in her eyes, and he shook his head, and leapt out of the speeder and headed after her.

It seemed that these waterfalls were a somewhat significant hike up this hill; he sighed, intent on climbing, and nearly ran into his sister when she stopped. "They're beautiful, aren't they?"

He looked at the rushing water, and it scared him slightly. He'd never seen that much water in one place, and it was moving quite fast, and forcefully over a very high cliff. But he could appreciate the beauty in this display of natural force. He smiled at her, "Yes, it's quite beautiful."

They watched the water fall for a few minutes, then she directed them back to the speeder, and they headed for the mausoleum that held their mother's body.

Silence greeted their arrival, and after another walk, they were at the entrance. "I keep hearing what an amazing politician Senator Amidala was," she said to him, "How much her people loved her, but I wonder if anyone truly ever knew her, the person behind the Senator's mask," she mused at her brother as they prepared to enter the tomb.

"A few did," a female voice came from inside, and they entered, curious at this. An older woman, in her forties, curtsied to them. She had brown eyes and hair, though she was starting to go grey. "I am Yané."

"So, you knew Senator Amidala?"

She laughed at that, "No, I retired when she became Senator. I was a handmaiden to Queen Amidala."

"So, it was just a job for you?"

"Oh, no, it was much more. She was one of my best friends. I was her constant companion for eight years, as were the other handmaidens. We went through so much together," she said with a far-off look in her eyes.

"And why didn't you go with her to Coruscant?"

"We had lives here, and Padmé was so loved by the people that there were a number of other young girls who were willing and able to put aside their lives here to go to Coruscant with her. We were never expected to perform duties beyond her term as Queen, and honestly, most of us would have been lost on Coruscant. The duties of a handmaiden are quite different for a Queen and a Senator, but we helped her chose her new retinue when the time came. Saché was especially helpful, but I'm sure you don't care to hear my ramblings," she said.

"We are here," Leia said, taking another step inside, having determined the woman not to be a threat. Luke was rather fascinated by the whole ordeal. Yané took a step to the side, and they saw the perfectly preserved body of Padmé Amidala.

"She is a very beautiful person," Luke commented, looking at the face of his mother for the first time since the day of his birth.

"She was a beautiful person on the inside as well. I don't know what happened, but we grew apart during the Clone Wars. She was always busy, never really taking the time to talk to any of us any more, really. I would say it hurt Sabé the most, though. They were the closest," Yané told them, looking at Padmé's body with them.

"I asked Dormé and Versé when they came back, but they didn't know, or wouldn't tell us anything more. Motté and Ellé weren't as friendly to us, and didn't talk to us at all. I wonder sometimes if they knew more than the rest of us, but I can't say with any degree of certainty. I suppose that's why I still come down here so often."

"What would her children have been like?" Luke asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Beautiful, precious, but I really wouldn't know. I never took the time to have children of my own, and I don't know that she planned this one, as closely as she held that secret. No one knows who the father was. There are as many theories as there are gnats in the meadows, but none of them sound enough for anything. If you asked me, I would say it was someone important, someone that it would have caused a great scandal for her to have been in a relationship with. Padmé was never one for passing affections, that I could have told you, though who she did love, I don't know. That she loved him, I have no doubt."

"Maybe that's why she stopped talking to you. Perhaps her falling in love coincided with the start of the Clone Wars," Leia said.

Yané smiled, "I've often wondered that myself. If that was the case, they were happy for three years, perhaps four, before she died. That's too short a time to live, to be happy."

"It's time to go," Luke said quietly to Leia.

She nodded, looking down, then went over to Yané. "Thank you for telling us about her."

Yané gave her a hug. "Be safe, young one. Keep Naboo in your heart, and you will always have peace," she drew back and it was then that she noticed the necklace.

"Where did you get this?"

"My father gave it to me."

"It looks like a necklace that Padmé wore all the time that she was Queen, and Senator, as far as I know. It was lost before her death."

"Perhaps it is similar," Leia said, and Luke cringed at the lie she was telling, "But Japor Snippet necklaces are common on Tatooine."

Yané shook her head. "You're probably right, I'm overreacting. It's been twenty years since I've seen that necklace."

He promised himself that when it was safe, they would come back and set Yané straight, and he could feel his sister echoing his thoughts. "Come on, Sola's probably worried herself sick," he whispered to her, and she nodded.

"Thank you for your time," he said to one of his mother's best friends, though she hadn't known about him or his sister. Very, very few had. According to what he'd been told, even their father hadn't been told until a couple of weeks before their birth, though not by their mother's choice. They left the woman there, not knowing what else to do. It had grown close to sunset in the time they'd spent with Yané, and they would need to hurry to get back to their aunt's house by sunset. It was dangerous on Tatooine after sunset, but he didn't know what variety of nightlife Naboo had. Probably worse than Tatooine's, with the abundance of water available here.

Leia went in first, with the memory of the dressmaker fresh in her mind. "There you two are. I was starting to get worried."

"Oh, we stopped by Diol Recanthra's shop, Mrs. Naberrie. She's very nice, but she does like to talk."

Sola laughed, "I'm surprised you got away from her within the day. My sister used to spend, I swear, days and days down at that shop, picking out things to wear in the Senate when she was home. She is the best dressmaker on Naboo."

"So I've heard from a number of sources. I was tempted into buying one dress from her."

"Really?" Sola asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Yes, she had a dress that she designed for Senator Amidala, but didn't get finished before her untimely death."

"Yes, I imagine she did. There was always a new dress coming from her shop here. Is she going to have the dress finished for you by the time you're ready to leave?"

"I think so, she needs to alter it a small bit, and adjust the length of the skirt, but that's all."

"I'd like to see it," Sola told her, and they went on to other, safer topics, like dinner.


	8. Visitors for Leia and Vader

**AN: I want to again thank ElusiveMaverick, who helped me get this back on track. I am dealing with some issues here and at home(computer and personal) so I appologize in advance if my posting gets really erratic. I'm trying. **

**Jedi Knight 13: Thanks for the encouragement. I'm glad you're enjoying the Leia/Vader relationship, and the trip to Naboo. It was a bit difficult for me to write some of the Naboo scenes, but I'm glad that they came through clearly. **

**PadawanMom: I intend to have them come back and explain things to** **Yané when they can, but I'm not sure of the direction of the story as yet. I'm glad you think that it was worth the wait for the next chapter, and since I think I'm pretty much past the writher's block, I think I will be able to update more regularly. As soon as my life (and other people's) settles into a more calm pattern. **

**Thanks for reviewing: general-joeseph-dickson and whitestorm13.**

* * *

Leia came home after her extended stay with her grandparents. She walked in the door of her apartment to the sound of arguing between Threepio and Artoo. "Ok, guys, I'm home," she called out, hoping that would stifle the conflict, but it was to no avail.

"Miss Leia, the most horrible thing has happened!" Threepio moaned at her as he trundled into the room.

"I only just walked in the door. Can it wait until I've at least put my case in my room and sat down first?"

Threepio shifted nervously, "Yes, Miss Leia," he said, sounding resigned, "Is there anything that I can get you?"

Artoo chose that moment to roll up to her, beeping his greeting, seemingly unruffled by Threepio's antics. He spun his dome and said something to Threepio, which caused Threepio to comment, "I don't want to hear any more from you, you overweight glob of grease."

She watched the two of them banter for a moment with morbid curiosity. Beeping, then, "No, I don't think she'll be your friend after this," she raised her eyebrow to this, as she was likely the only 'she' they would be talking about.

More beeps. "No, I don't want to be your friend anymore either."

"Enough," she said, cutting off any response Artoo might have had. She pointed at Artoo, "You, Common room. Now. And for Force's sake, be quiet," he beeped quietly, more subdued than he usually was.

She turned to the other droid as Artoo wheeled himself off. "Threepio, would you get me some tea, and I will be in the common room momentarily."

"Yes, Miss Leia."

She put her case on the bed. She would need to unpack at least some of the things in there before she went to sleep.

* * *

Vader was uncertain as to what the Countess was wantingwanted him to do. She had requested his assistance in finding a dress, but he didn't have the first clue as to how to go about doing that. "What kind of dress should I wear?" she asked. They were expected to attend the Senatorial Ball, which would be coming up in another month.

He was sure that his exasperation was clear from his words, let alone his tone. "I don't know. I don't pay that much attention to female clothing, and I don't wear anything but this, so I don't pay much attention to male clothing, either, now."

"But I want something new, something that I haven't worn out before, something special."

"Why don't you ask Leia?" he asked, finally at the end of his rope.

"Because I'm asking you. What do you think would look good on me?"

"I have little perception of color, Countess. That was taken from me, along with so many other things."

She bit her lip, having forgotten for a moment that he was uniquely limited. "I'm sorry. You're right. I'll ask Leia."

"I would probably choose something inappropriate, if you permitted me to choose."

"I would like to see what you would choose, then."

He almost smiled. She was teasing him. She wouldn't be able to get away with that forever, but he let it pass for that moment.

* * *

Leia settled into the armchair in her common room as Threepio brought her the cup of tea she had requested. The two droids were quiet as she took a sip, and finding it satisfactory, she set it on the end table next to her. She folded her hands and sat forward. "Now what is going on?"

"I am not quite sure where to begin, Miss Leia."

"I left for Naboo. Start there," she directed.

"Certainly, Miss Leia. Everything was fine for most of a week. Then Lord Vader came by unannounced one morning."

This was news to her; he rarely came over, and he was quite aware of the Senate's schedule. And she had never seen him in the morning, ever. The earliest she'd seen him in his office was noon. Vader coming by her home while he knew she wasn't there disturbed her slightly, but she was also very curious as to why he had come by in the first place. "Why would he do that?"

"He told me that he was going to hook up a backup memory storage device that I am equipped with, but that it required me to be shut down," Threepio wailed, and she knew it was, if a machine could be said to have fear, Threepio's biggest fear to be powered down by someone else.

"For how long?" she asked, somewhat worried about it.

"My chronometer indicated nearly ten hours."

She sighed. This could turn into a long night. "So what happened?"

Artoo beeped at Threepio, and then Threepio looked at her. "Artoo insists that they 'fixed' me."

"I didn't realize you were broken," she said, sitting back and picking up her tea again. If Artoo had been involved, then nothing truly disastrous could have happened. _Probably. _

"I wasn't, Miss Leia, but after I was reactivated, I was able to recall information from the time I first came into Master Anakin's possession when he was seven."

So they _had_restored part or all of the memories Threepio was missing from his memory wipe, which had happened about the time she had been born. "So you were shut down for ten hours and got your memory back?" she asked, hiding her smile behind her cup of tea.

He paused. "Yes, Miss Leia, and it was awful."

She highly doubted that. "I don't see the problem, Threepio."

"I was fine with not remembering the Clone Wars, or Miss Padmé or Master Anakin, or Mustafar, or any of it." She had heard the story of Mustafar from Obi-Wan's point-of-view, and she would get to Threepio's at some point, but she was more interested in some happier memories right then.

_So he does remember everything, or close to it_, she thought as she switched gears mentally. "Tell me about when my parents met."

"I was not present at that event," Threepio said, and Artoo beeped at him. "Well, fine, if you say so," he said to the other droid.

"What?" she asked.

"Artoo says he was there." Artoo activated his holoimager, and it displayed a scene, a still image of a young boy sitting on a counter, and a young girl standing some distance off, and from the image, she imagined he had just caught her eye, and she had just looked up to see him. Threepio started a narrative of the scene, his previous displeasure at the situation having evaporated, as she knelt down next to Artoo, fascinated by the defiant slave boy, and the girl he would eventually marry. "That is Watto's Junk Shop. I remember it quite well. Master Anakin is nine, and Miss Padmé was fourteen, though I only met her briefly then. It was the same time that I met Artoo here. It was a time of great turmoil for me. It was only a day and a bit after I met the two of them that the Jedi that had come with them contrived to free Master Anakin and took him with them to Coruscant. I stayed on Tatooine with Miss Shmi, Master Anakin's mother."

"You spent time with my grandmother?"

"Yes, Miss Leia, I was with her from the time I can remember until her capture before her death. After that, Master Anakin took me with him, and I stayed with Miss Padmé until her death, and Artoo looked after Master Anakin for Miss Padmé."

Leia knew this was one of the bad stories in her family's history, but she wanted to understand it more completely, so she told Threepio, "Tell me about her capture, please."

"Miss Shmi went out one morning to gather mushrooms from the sides of the vaporators, on the moisture farm, that her husband, Cliegg Lars, owned. She was captured by Tuskan Raiders. It was nearly a month until her death. I understand that she was tortured, and she died from the injuries she sustained while she was kept by them," she remembered the story Vader had told her much along the same vein then.

Her curiosity got aholda hold of her then, "Tell me more," she directed.

"Oh, Miss Leia, I am not good at telling stories."

"It doesn't matter, Threepio. Tell me anyway."

"Yes, Miss Leia. Master Anakin claimed that he had had dreams that she was in pain, and he came to Tatooine to see why. He had not had contact with Miss Shmi in all that time, but his dreams had brought him home. That is how her body was brought home. He went into the desert alone, though a group of thirty men from neighboring farms had gone and only a few had returned. He found her, and she died in his arms. He, I believe the term he used was slaughtered, the whole tribe in revenge," he went into details that she probably would have rather he skipped then, describing Anakin's return to the farmhouse.

She was silent with horror at what Vader had been through. The story Threepio had just told her was far more detailed than the version she'd gotten from Obi-Wan, Owen and Beru, and the additional conformation she had gotten from Vader. Every time she heard one of the bad stories about her birth father, she got additional details, and the horror of what he'd been through hit her anew. She wanted Threepio's perspective on Mustafar, and anything else he could tell her about Vader's fall, but she was tired, and needed to be sharp when Senate was called into session the next day.

* * *

Vader settled in as he prepared to modify the fighter in front of him. It was one of the new model TIEs, and he was actually eager to get to work on it. Nearly as eager as he was to continue Leia's training, now that they'd finally gotten started. The first sets of lightsaber exercises tried his patience a bit, but she was so eager to learn, taking in anything he told her and she was able to fit it into everything else easily, that he couldn't refuse her. She was as eager as he had been, more so perhaps. She knew the battle they were facing; the one that they would face as father and daughter. He considered the fact that it truly meant a great deal to her that he was training her himself. He didn't really trust himself to train her, but he couldn't leave it to anyone else. Perhaps if Obi-Wan were somewhere findable, he would have helped her out, but he wasn't and Vader wasn't about to go looking for him. The only place he was _allowed_was Coruscant, and that was a thought that rubbed heavily along a raw nerve. He needed to get Leia's training completed soon. There were only five months left before the wedding.

He schooled his thoughts, trying to accomplish what he'd set out for this day; making modifications so that he could take a test flight in this fighter today.

* * *

Vesenj went to the apartment of the woman who would soon be her stepdaughter. It was rather odd. She knew that Vader spoke with her relatively often, and she saw Leia at least once a week herself, but she hadn't ever seen the two of them do anything together. She wouldn't have wished anything more than not having to hide things from the Emperor. He was something out of nightmares, truly horrifying, and his continued existence was a drain on the galaxy, spiritually as well as financially. She rang the chime, and the door was nearly immediately answered by Leia's droid. "Miss Vesenj, come in. Miss Leia is rather busy right at the moment, but you are welcome to wait for her."

"Who is it, Threepio?" Leia's voice came from the bedroom.

He shuffled over to that door. "Countess Vesenj, Miss Leia. Would you like for me to have her wait for you?"

"No, she can come in here. I would like her opinion," she said, and Vesenj stepped over to the doorway. There was a small woman checking the pleating of the dress Leia was wearing, but it wasn't something she'd ever seen Leia wear, not even close. It was stunningly beautiful.

"Wow. I was just coming over to ask for your opinion on a new dress to wear to the Senatorial Ball."

"Well, you came on the right day, then, I suppose. Diol Recanthra, meet the Countess Vesenj of Cormoron."

"A dress, you need a dress?" the small woman asked, coming over to her, examining her current dress.

"I would like one, and I can't believe that I'm meeting you," she said. Recanthra dresses were about the most coveted clothing around.

"Oh, posh. Of course you can. Silver," she declared, "Unless you are going without Tall, Black and Shiny?"

Leia giggled at the irreverence the woman was showing to her father. Vesenj shot Leia a dirty look. "No, he's coming."

"I would say turquoise to set off your eyes, and perhaps we can work some threading in that will make the dress less stark. You are so pale, dear. I dread working with someone so fair. It is such a challenge to balance between the dark colors, which would just wash you out, and the light ones, which accent the paleness, and the bright ones, which dull your own natural colors."

"I don't think I've ever seen you wear anything but white," she said to Leia as Diol muttered to herself, getting something out of a small bag.

"Senatorial custom, but Diol convinced me that this would look beautiful on me."

"Eh, no convincing, you have the look of Amidala about you, and she always looked stunning. I don't understand it. The Organas are not so fair as the Naberries, but the hair, the eyes, those are still dark. It is too bad that Sola never went into the public arena. She would have been beautiful to dress. Pooja won't let me. Says it makes her sad when I dress her. She used to come down to the store with Amidala when she would get things. Adored her aunt, she did, even then, and I think more so after she died," she said, talking non-stop as she measured Vesenj for the dress that she was going to make.

"You look amazing, Leia. I can't wait to see what my dress will look like," she said to the dressmaker.

"Eh. I can see what I can whip up tonight, and you can see it tomorrow, if you care to. I haven't been to Coruscant since…it stopped being Coruscant."

"That would be fine," Vesenj said.

"Good. Your fittings are finished, Senator. Would you like another dress soon?"

"I don't know. I don't know that I will have occasion to wear one again so soon."

The old woman nodded. "I can work on something in my spare time, and when you want something else, it should be ready at least for you to see."

Leia smiled at her. It was a rather devious way to get her curious, but she really didn't need to be spending the kind of money that these dresses cost on a regular basis. She had humanitarian missions and other things she donated her money to. Vesenj knew she had a lot of places for money to go, and not enough to go around as it was.

* * *

Leia sat in her office. She was supposed to be working, but she couldn't concentrate. Her mind had been wandering all day, rolling through the memories she had made in the last year. _Tomorrow, _she thought, _It's my birthday, the first one I get to spend with my family, my real family._ She realized it would be Luke's first birthday with her as well. It was almost appropriate that meeting his father was going to be his present, well, sort of.

She was just relieved Obi-Wan had finally relented, and he and Luke were joining her on Coruscant, at least for a while. Luke had finally given up totally on enrolling in the Imperial Academy. Skywalker was not a common name in the galaxy at large, and he did look a lot like their father. The connection wouldn't be that hard to make, even with an assumed name. So he had been learning the ways of the Force, learning to become a Jedi, like their father. The hard part was coming up. She'd kept secret from Vader both her talks with Obi-Wan about him and Luke's existence, as well as what they said to each other. Now Vader was due in her office any time. She'd contacted him under the guise of getting some mercy missions approved, and he'd readily enough agreed to come to her office to see about it.

She hadn't seen him since she'd gotten back to Coruscant a week previous; not highly unusual, since she'd been unpacking and rearranging her apartment, and he had been busy with this farce of a marriage that the Emperor seemed intent on foisting on him. About the first thing she'd learned when she arrived on the planet was that the Emperor had announced that Vader was to be married. He'd done it on the same day that she had found out that he was her father; she found out that day that her mother had meant so very much to him still. She knew that any wedding plans with Vader's name on them were solely the idea of the Emperor, and he was only doing it to punish her father for having found her instead of being on Coruscant for Empire Day.

It had been a year since she had learned she was the daughter of Vader. He'd come by to see her only once a week, and that if she was lucky, at least in private. They often met in public. His office was one of the many in the Senate building that didn't actually house Senators. He'd been required to stay on Coruscant until the wedding, and was as bad as a caged animal. He had come over to her apartment twice in the week before she'd left this time; Vesenj lived in the same building, and Leia was fairly sure that he considered Vesenj the less interesting of the two of them. The conversations she had been having lately with Vader had been short, but she got the feeling that he left in a much better mood than he came to her in.

She was staring blankly at her datapad when he walked into the room. "Leia?"

"Hmm?" she looked up at him, "Oh. I need you to sign these."

"You could have just sent them to my office."

"Daddy sent me a message yesterday. I want you to meet someone," her fingers went to her necklace of their own volition.

"You are nervous about me meeting this person," he said as he noticed her fidgeting.

"People. Two, actually. They should be here in a couple of hours."

"Why are you nervous?"

"I don't know how you'll react. I'm afraid you'll be mad at me."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because, I've known about this and I haven't told you."

Vader's hand went to his mask, as though he were going to rub his forehead, the way Luke did when she was being evasive. "I assume that you aren't going to be any more forthcoming here, are you?"

"Not if I don't have to be."

He shook his head. "You are your mother's child. I'll be there. I can't promise when or how long I can stay, but I'll be there."

"Thank you," she said, as he finished signing the documents that would basically give her the run of the galaxy and handed them back to her. There had been little for anyone who was watching through the windows to find amiss about the situation. If things had been different, she would have been frightened out of her mind to ask for these documents to be signed. The relief and happiness that she had shown at the end could have easily been because of the favor he had just done her. The only thing that someone might find irregular about it would have been that she had asked for the meeting, but that could be explained by the urgency of the first mission she would be going on. She only had two days to put together supplies to go to Garos IV, where a major groundquake had disrupted most of civilization for the planet. Just because the rest of them were her 'standard' humanitarian missions that happened to be to planets that housed major portions of the Rebellion meant nothing. She was and she wasn't part of the Rebellion. For this particular type of thing; she wasn't. Various members of the Rebellion had seen the way she interacted with Vader, and had pressured her to take advantage of her relationship with him, whatever that was. She had stubbornly refused, and they hadn't understood.

Vader left after a moment, saying nothing more, but she'd learned that he didn't really do overly emotional displays. There was a part of her that believed he wanted to, but something was stopping him. That was why she didn't try to take advantage of him. He was trying—very hard, in fact—to be a good person. He was just trapped by the quicksand of the darkness that he had surrounded himself with for the first eighteen years of her life. He trusted her, and she wasn't about to do anything to jeopardize that trust.

* * *

Vader walked from the elevators to Leia's apartment. He was, of course, supposed to be visiting the Countess of Cormoron, or that would be what the Emperor would think, since he was in this particular building. Her name sometimes escaped his memory; it wasn't like remembering her name was something that he cared deeply about. He probably should, considering he spent some portion of every day with her now, but he just couldn't summon the proper emotions. He rang the chime on the door, despite knowing that she would know who was at her door.

"…the door," a young man was finishing what he was saying, probably to Leia, as he opened the door opened. "Oh, hi," was all he said to Vader as he moved away from the door to allow him in.

Leia popped her head out of the kitchen, scowling at the young man. "I said that I would get the door, Luke."

"Sorry, I didn't know it was a big deal," he said, unrepentant, kissing the top of her head in a very familiar way.

"I suppose I'll forgive you this time. But you need to listen to me while we're on Coruscant. It's not like when you're home," she turned to Vader finally, having dealt with Luke for the moment. "I was in the middle of fixing dinner, I'm sorry. It will be just a couple of minutes, and I'll tell you everything."

"You don't feel particularly safe in your office, do you?"

"Not as much as I do here," she said as she went back to her work in the kitchen. Luke disappeared in the direction of the balcony.

"So this boy," Vader started, following her into the kitchen with his arms folded across his chest.

"I said I would explain things once I got dinner finished," she said, and the tone reminded him strongly of the way Padmé used to talk to him.

He felt like laughing; she ordered him about the way his wife used to. He hadn't felt like laughing for years, and that thought nearly brought him to tears again, for all the years he had lost with his children. _Wait, that's not right…_

"Are you coming? The guys are out on the balcony," she asked, knocking him out of his reverie. She was carrying a rather large tray of all sorts of things, not paying much if any attention to his mood swings anymore.

Having no time for further consideration of the errant thought, he dismissed it as he followed her to the balcony. The other visitor that he found there stunned him.


	9. ObiWan

**AN: And so another chapter. Sorry it did take so long after leaving it at such an evil cliffhanger. Thanks to all my reviewers, even Crimson Rage, who left me no way to contact...I'm glad you liked it!**

* * *

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," Vader said, looking at his former Master, "We meet again."

"Yes we do. Are you Vader, or are you Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked, and the directness of the question made Vader's stomach queasy, and started driving him into a panic despite over thirty years of training both as a Sith and as a Jedi.

Leia took one look at him, and started talking about the eccentricities of Senatorial politics with Luke. "You remember Pooja, right Luke?"

"Yes, she seems very nice, nicer than Sola anyway," he said sourly.

"Well, she and I are working on relief initiatives together. I think she would enjoy the input of someone who lives on the Outer Rim, to gauge the attitude of the people, so that we don't overstep our welcome, you know?" Vader sat down, across the table from Obi-Wan, Luke and Leia to either side of him. She still hadn't said anything to him directly, but he wasn't sure he would be able to keep a civil tongue in his head if she did.

"That would be easy to do. Farmers are a proud sort, not likely to take any sort of help."

"I've told her that, but maybe it would be easier to swallow coming from you."

"You know I don't speak politics."

"You get that from your father," she said, and turned to him. There was no doubt in his mind at that moment who was in charge of that particular meeting, and it wasn't someone with a Y chromosome. He felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him when he had seen Obi-Wan, and he was still trying to make the feeling go away. There was a Jedi trick, releasing one's emotions into the Force, that he was trying desperately to do, but it wasn't working well. Well enough that he would be able to have a conversation with her, and not any worse than it had ever worked, but it was not working as well as he would have liked. She gently laid her hand on his arm, "I wanted to tell you this, but I didn't know how."

"Tell me what?" he asked her gently, warmth flowing through him as he thought of how much she was like her mother.

She bit her lip, really not knowing where to start. "I met Luke a couple of days after I met you, because Daddy didn't think I should be saying some of the things I was saying about you."

Vader, and not for the first time, was grateful that the mask hid his face, as he felt a twist of pain at Leia calling Senator Organa "Daddy". Yet, he was honest with himself, and admitted he'd forfeited the right to that title a long time ago. "What were you saying about me?"

She laughed, it was nervous, but it was still her laugh, the one she'd inherited from her mother. "That you weren't the monster that the HoloNews made you out to be, I think that was the thing that frightened him the most, that I wasn't afraid of you."

"So what did that have to do with meeting Luke?"

"Well, he was on the same planet as Obi-Wan, who was supposed to," she cleared her throat, obviously trying to imitate her adoptive father, "'Talk some sense into' me."

"What planet was that?"

"Tatooine," she said, her voice full of gentle sadness, because she probably knew better than anyone what that planet represented to him.

So she'd fallen in love with a Tatooine farm boy? It made no sense inside his head, and he knew he was missing something, something he should know, "I don't understand."

"Oh, you're a smart one. I would have thought you had learned to listen to your instincts by now," Obi-Wan said, in that way that had always irked him, because it meant that he hadn't thought something through. _Instincts…_

"My son," he said as the pieces of the puzzle fit into place suddenly.

"Very good. Luke Skywalker, meet your father," Obi-Wan said.

"I have something that I wanted to ask you," Luke said.

"Yes?" he asked, his heart filling with joy and trepidation. "Did you really do all the things Obi-Wan said?"

"Probably. I've never known him to lie," he said uncomfortably.

"You raced pods? And at nine? And built C-3PO?" Luke asked, the excitement of what he thought of those things filling his voice, and Leia laughed at him.

"Yes, to all of it," he answered, relieved that the boy's questions were in the realm of something he could be proud to tell his son that he'd done.

"I see the years have done nothing to dull your tongue, Obi-Wan," Vader said as Luke turned his attention to his food.

"Only for you, my brother."

Vader said nothing, glowering slightly under his mask, a brief flashback came to him of Mustafar.

Obi-Wan continued, either oblivious to or ignoring his mood. Probably the latter. "Now, as for why we're here. Leia has been telling me interesting things about you."

"Leia's been talking to you?"

"Yes, I've been talking with her for the last year. It's not been easy, but I felt that she would do as she pleased regardless of whether she had someone to guide her, and this has allowed me some insights into things that have happened, chapters of my life I thought closed, and I understand why some things happened. That was the worst part of this whole ordeal, was never knowing why."

"Obi-Wan, You know why I turned; you were there when I fully embraced the Dark Side. I'm sure you've pieced together what happened," he said, and he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"That isn't what I meant, Anakin. The question that has plagued me the past 19 years is why you didn't come to me for help."

"You wouldn't have understood; you'd have told me the same damn thing Yoda did when I talked to him about it. Wisest of the wise, yet he couldn't understand. If Yoda couldn't how could you?" Vader's tone was nearing angry, he stopped and recognized the real emotion, a very familiar one, frustration.

"How can you say that Anakin, with what you know about Siri?" Obi-Wan asked.

"You walked away from her, Obi-Wan, you did the one thing I could never do with Padmé," Vader said.

"We were both Jedi, Anakin, she understood and stood by the decision we BOTH made."

Vader was silent for a moment, "What are you saying, Old Man?"

"Who trained me, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Master Qui-Gon, is there a point to this question?"

"Yes, Qui-Gon was and still is a maverick. Yoda complains at least once a week about something he's said that's hard for him to swallow."

"Qui-Gon is dead, Obi-Wan. Are you now going senile?"

"No, my brother. He joined the Force, that is true, but he discovered the secret to keeping his individuality."

The twins gasped in shock at this revelation, but Vader couldn't tell if they were shocked at the information, or at the fact that Obi-Wan shared it with him. He knew he was shocked that Obi-Wan put that much trust in him. Palpatine would be pleased to know this was possible, if Vader chose to tell him. He found himself surprised that he was even considering NOT telling his Master. Then he was surprised that he'd been surprised. Palpatine didn't share well, why should he do something for the miserable wretch who had cost him everything he had held dear?

"I knew that Leia's arrival meant that things were about to get interesting. It was also the first opportunity that I had to impress upon your step-brother the importance of Luke's training."

"You have been training Luke?"

"Yes. He is in need of a bit more refinement in the way of his techniques, but that will come with time and practice."

"Obi-Wan said that we should try to get some lightsaber crystals while we're here," Luke said.

"Do you not have a lightsaber yet?"

"Not one of my own," Luke said, "Not that I mind the one that I'm using," he added quickly.

"But it is always best to use a blade that you've built yourself," Vader concluded. "I remember the lessons."

"If you remember your lessons, then what happened?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Desperation," Vader said finally. "But I don't think this is the time to dredge up the past."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Maybe we can discuss it another time."

"Maybe."

"So, my former Padawan," Obi-Wan said.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that."

"It is true, is it not?"

"I suppose."

"Well, I suppose I could call you Anakin, or what was it that you always let Padmé call you, Ani?"

"Call me whatever you like," he said grumpily.

"Very well, then, Anakin. What I wanted to ask you is if you knew any way to get lightsaber crystals."

"I know many ways, but you probably know more."

"Yes, and as many as you know, I think the Emperor knows more, and is therefore attempting to keep anyone who would have use of them from obtaining them. I would like to help Luke get his crystals without getting shot at."

"Ah. I hadn't thought about that," he said, sitting back and thinking for a while. "I think there are some in the Temple."

Obi-Wan considered that. "Those should do."

It was difficult for him to sit across from Obi-Wan, to not think about the betrayal he felt when Obi-Wan stepped off Padmé's ship on Mustafar. It was harder to think of betraying the trust that Leia was very obviously placing in him by bringing her brother and his mentor to Coruscant, to him.

He felt something stirring inside him, an emotion, and it took him a little bit to identify it. It was happiness, the pure giddy happiness he'd felt only once before—the day that Padmé had told him she was pregnant. Leia had been a blessing, and Luke had been a surprise that had turned his world upside-down again. It was amazing, and terrifying, and it was interfering with his ability to think rationally. He wanted his children safe from the monster that had taken half his life from him.

Rational thought was starting to give way to the emotional impulses that he'd lived with as a Jedi, the ones he had trusted to get him where he needed to be. The last one he had trusted, the one that had said Padmé was in mortal danger had been correct, but for all the wrong reasons, and that one had led him to the dark side, away from his children, away from his Angel. _Can I afford to trust these impulses again?_ He wondered to himself, and the look he saw in the eyes of his former mentor set him on edge. He was uncertain as to whether he could trust Obi-Wan, but even more uncertain as to whether he could trust himself.

He was feeling overwhelmed, and he was pushing the limits of his ability to harness his darker emotions so that he could sit still with a man who was barely a year ago his sworn enemy. "It is time for me to go," he said to Leia.

"I'll walk you out," she said, getting up as he did, following him into her apartment.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked her in a strangled voice as the door to the balcony closed behind her.

"I've been begging Obi-Wan to come out here since Daddy shipped me off to Tatooine two days after my birthday," she said unhappily, and he could feel her turmoil at having kept this secret from him. "Are you going to go see the Countess?"

"I suppose I will, but I'd rather stay here and talk with Luke and you."

"That gives you incentive to come back sooner then, doesn't it?" she said as he turned to face her.

"I suppose. What have you been telling Obi-Wan?"

"He mostly asks about my feelings, not about what we talk about. I tell him my impressions are. I don't know what he thinks about it. He's rather hard to read."

"He can be. Jedi are typically that way. I still think you could have told me," he told her, and even to him it sounded like he was whining.

She looked a bit hurt. "I might have, but Obi-Wan told me not to, and I still wasn't entirely sure that I could trust you."

"But you trusted him?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "By the time that I felt that I could completely trust you, I didn't want to upset you. If you hadn't noticed, you do have quite a temper."

"Which you inherited in full measure from me," he said unhappily, but peace began to descend upon his soul. He sighed, resigned that he could only ever partly make up for the horror that had become his life, and surprised that he wanted to even try to make amends.

"So I know what it's like to get unexpected news. I thought this was probably the easiest way to do this."

"You are far too much like your mother," he said as she came over to him, hesitantly, as though she were uncertain of her welcome inside his personal space.

"I thought you said I was like you."

He was so sad that his daughter, someone he wanted in his life more than anything was in any way afraid of him or what he might do. He touched the side of her face, and let his fingers run through her hair just a little. "You are. You have my temper and you have your mother's social skills. Thank the Force that you didn't get mine."

"Bad?"

"I think the first line I used on your mother was 'Are you an Angel?'"

Leia tried to keep from laughing, but wasn't particularly successful, but he didn't care, because she was his family, and with her he could get through this, even if it meant having to deal with Obi-Wan on a daily basis, even if his old mentor had truly taken leave of his senses.

* * *

Vesenj had finished her fittings for her dress, and she wanted to show Leia, hoping the dress would be as stunning as Leia's was too much to hope for, but it _was_ quite a sight. True to her word, Diol had made it silver, which would accent her next to Vader's imposing figure, but it wouldn't look bad on her when she was by herself . The teal and turquoise accenting on the neckline was amazing, but otherwise the body of the dress was plain. The skirt was made from an insane amount of layers, each of a different shade of silver, pewter, gray, and so forth, and the skirt was gathered in the front so that it showed each of those layers, and the crystalline shoes that she had to go with the dress. Her toenails were painted in the same shade as the turquoise trim of the top of her dress.

She rang the chime at Leia's door, and her protocol droid answered. "Lady Vesenj, I'm sorry, but Miss Leia is not home."

"Oh," she said disappointed, "Do you know when she'll be in?"

"She did not specify to me, but let me ask Master Luke," he said, and trundled off into another room. She waited for a few minutes, and then a young man came out of the same room, and the protocol droid followed him. He was toweling his blonde hair as though he'd been exercising or taking a shower. Considering the loose fitting pants and the tight sleeveless shirt, probably the latter.

"You must be Luke," she said.

"Yes," he said, then when she didn't say anything in return, "Leia was going into the office to take care of a few things, but she and Pooja will be home in time for lunch."

"You know Senator Naberrie?"

He smiled. "She's my cousin. You are Vesenj, Countess of Cormoron?"

"Yes. I'm probably the most talked about person in the galaxy right now, aside from the Emperor."

He nodded. "Leia's mentioned you."

"She doesn't say bad things about me, does she?"

"No," he said with an easy smile. "She doesn't say bad things about you."

"What does she say?" she asked, her curiosity overcoming her shyness. He looked like someone who was used to physical activity, someone who would be a good guard, or worse, fighter, and who probably didn't spend much time using his mind. It was this assessment that startled her, because she wouldn't have thought that either Leia or Pooja would have wanted to be around someone like that. _There must be more to him,_ she thought, _he can't just be brawn._

"Not much. You live in her building, and she thinks you're rather quiet."

"Someone else has told me that I'm quiet," she said, frowning. It was Vader's main complaint about her, and now it seemed, Leia's also.

"I'm not sure I believe them," he said, and she realized he was quiet in his own way as well. He was well muscled, and the shirt he was wearing showed that off well. He wasn't quite done filling out, so he couldn't be more than twenty, but he wasn't any younger than eighteen, so he was about their same age. She didn't know what to say about that, so she changed the subject, to him.

"So why are you in Leia's apartment?" she asked curiously, feeling strangely at ease with him, but she wouldn't have been able to say why if she had been pressed.

"I am staying here with my sister while I am on Coruscant."

"Oh, so Leia's your SISTER," she said.

The door opened behind her, and Leia and Pooja nearly fell through the door, they were laughing so hard, but nearly instantly sobered up when they saw Luke and Vesenj. "Luke," Leia said, "Aren't you supposed to be training?"

"I was, but the Countess came over, and Threepio had no idea what to do with her, so I came out to see if I could help her," he said, kissing Leia on the cheek, "I'll go back to my training until lunch is ready, sis."

He left the room, and she turned to Vesenj. "Your brother is cute," Vesenj said.

Leia looked at her, concerned, "And you're engaged to be married to his father, and I don't think the 'matchmaker' will be pleased," she reminded her.

Vesenj's eyes grew dark with fear, but was saved from having to answer by Senator Naberrie. "Is that what you're wearing to the Senatorial Ball?"

"Oh," Leia said in surprise, looking the countess over finally, her brother's cuteness forgotten for the moment, "Your dress is finished?"

She smiled and nodded, and the three women went into Leia's bedroom for a discussion of the upcoming Ball.

* * *

Vader was trying to figure out how the process of retaining one's identity when joining the Force worked. He was doing it in secret, while his Master was still away, checking the progress of the Death Star or something. _"Well, Anakin, it's really not that hard."_

Shock traveled through his body as every nerve came to life. It was like being electrocuted from the inside, but it didn't actually hurt. His eyes slammed open, and he scanned the room, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary. "Who are you?" he asked angrily.

"_You should already know the answer to that question,Ani."_

And he did. The voice was Qui-Gon's and he'd heard it before. One of his first steps to the dark side had included hearing that voice, in just the manner that he was now, like it was both whispered in his ear, and reverberated inside his head. "Forgive me, Master."

"_I forgive you for your anger towards me just now. I think that's all either of us could stand right at the moment, and all you were truly asking for, but there will come a day that I am not the one who can give you what you seek."_

"Yes, Master," he said, finding it somewhat surprising that he still respected what Qui-Gon had to say. He supposed that it had something to do with the fact that he was not yet tainted by Palpatine's influence when Qui-Gon had died.

"_The last year has been as rough on Leia as it has been on you," _Qui-Gon said. _"She's not had a moment's peace, at least not until she went to Naboo."_

"And Luke?"

"_While not as mentally demanding, the changes of the last year have been quite demanding physically. But Jedi training always was that."_

His heart was pounding at the thought of both his children in training to become what he had once been. He didn't say anything, couldn't really, because to think of them training to become what he was _now_, would have put him into a panic that would have caused the destruction of all three of them. They weren't ready, not by a long shot, for a confrontation with the Emperor. But that was his ultimate goal, and how else was he going to get there, but by helping them achieve training equal to that of a Jedi Knight, or Master, if it could be done? "Yes," he said finally to Qui-Gon, "It was always that."

"_You do not resist it, even though it creates fear in you to think of your children as Jedi."_

"Always two Sith there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice."

"_It hasn't always been that way."_

"Yes, I know, it changed with Bane. I've studied the history of the Sith as well as I have the history of the Jedi."

"_So they cannot be Sith because that would break the Rule of Two?"_

"Yes. That, and they are just children, they haven't fallen in love, had children of their own; they haven't _lived_ yet. I won't fail Padmé again," he finally admitted, as much to himself as to Qui-Gon, "I won't no matter what the costs."

"_So it is your heart that cannot take the thought, not your rules."_

He looked down into his lap. It was true, though he didn't want to admit it to himself. "Yes," he said finally.

"_Then there is hope for you."_

* * *

Leia looked at the small crystals that her father had dropped off for them. They didn't look like much; cloudy green and blue rough shapes in two sizes. The smaller ones were for training sabers, and the larger for their true blades. He had selected eight of each, but he hadn't wanted to stay around while they made their selections. He'd told her that more were available if either of them were not satisfied with the choices presented.

"Well, Leia, you should be meditating, too."

"Yes, Master Kenobi," she said, dropping to the meditation cushion on the floor, and adopting a proper stance. Luke had been meditating for about an hour, but he had yet to make a decision, either.

"This one," she heard him say, picking up one of the large green crystals. It was much the same as any of the others, but she noticed a subtle difference in its energy, as though it werespeaking to her brother. She looked over the crystals,listening instead of looking, and soon her hand reached out to a large blue one of its own volition.

"This one," she told Obi-Wan, holding it out to him.

"Alright, young ones, now to the construction." They were going to be at this for a long time.

* * *

Vader was unable to stay away from Leia's apartment. The fact that it held both of his precious children made it nearly impossible for him to resist the urge to stop by nearly every evening. Obi-Wan's presence wasn't quite deterrent enough to keep him away.

Luke was showing him the half-finished lightsaber that he was constructing. Leia's was about a quarter of the way done, but she still had Senate meetings to attend, and other things during the day. "After it's done, maybe I can give this one back," Luke said with a glance in Obi-Wan's direction.

He hadn't taken the time to examine the lightsaber that Luke used for his daily practices, but he said, "May I see it?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Obi-Wan interjected quickly.

"Why not? It's not like I don't carry one around all of the time anyway."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Stubborn," he muttered, sitting down.

Vader took this as tactic approval, and held his hand out to Luke. Luke handed him the weapon, and his fingers curled around it, and it was familiar, as though he had held the weapon before. He glanced down at the hilt, finding it familiar in its design—very familiar. "This is mine."

"Yes, it is yours, or it was yours. Luke received your lightsaber when he came of age, and Leia received a necklace that her mother gave me as she was dying."

"Yes, I know. I can't say how much that necklace affected me, seeing it, knowing its significance, knowing all of the love that was poured into that single tiny object."

He handed the lightsaber back to Luke. "It is your legacy, Luke, I don't want to take that from you."

"Father, you should carry it, once I've made mine, it's yours, it will remind you of good things."

"No, Luke, I could never wield that blade again. Too many innocent lives were taken with it."

"You should build a new one, then, with us."

He thought about it, knowing deep inside that his son was right, but not ready to face all of the things that meant. "I will consider it, my son. Perhaps I can do so at some point, but I do not feel that now is the time," he told Luke, Obi-Wan temporarily forgotten in a moment of father-son bonding.

"You never answered my question from earlier," Obi-Wan said, breaking the silence, and dread filled Vader's insides nearly instantly. "Are you Vader or are you Anakin?"

He truly didn't know what to say, and being near his children gave him just enough courage to admit it. "I don't know," he said softly, and the stunned looks on the faces of both Obi-Wan and Luke told him that none of them now knew what to do about him.


	10. Peacocks and Parables

**AN: I come to you with my hat in my hand, well, if I owned a hat I would. I Know, it's been forever, (14 1/2 months) since I have updated this, but seriously, the last scene just wouldn't come out. And wouldn't come out. And wouldn't come out. And came out totally wrong, and came out more wrong. Then a couple of days ago, it came out almost right. So I tweaked it, and here it is. **

**Reviews: thank you, **general-joseph-dickson, **Kirai-Ninja, **ILDV, **The Dark Lord Potter,** Chechire, **insanechildfanfic, **Harm Marie, **oscar101, **ElusiveMaverick, **MrPowell, **Celebwen Telcontar, **leyte, **Saimhe, **Rob, **and ilovenat1995.

**And if you are still about, MrPowell, I may take you up on the beta-reading. let me know if you're still interested :)**

* * *

Leia was excited to be at the Senatorial Ball—so different from a year previous. The Emperor's attendance was not expected, since Vader would be there. One thing Vesenj's presence had done was get Vader out to more social events in the last year than in the eighteen years previous. She wasn't the only one working miracles on Vader either. Leia's own presence had done much as well. Enough to even convince him not to be in a particularly bad mood when he'd been informed that he would be wearing something 'festive' at the behest of the Emperor. She'd been impressed that her father had retained enough self-control when the messenger delivered the package not to kill him.

Of course, it meant more that he hadn't complained at all as he'd opened the package, pulling out each piece of his new accoutrement, even though she could feel his displeasure at the thought of donning something so _opulent. _There really wasn't a word for what the Emperor was doing to him. It was both a punishment for Vader and a display of the Emperor's power.

Vader was turned into a walking display of over-indulgence. The main pieces of his armor, for armor was the only function of the black suit, besides his breathing equipment, were crafted of jade. They were beautiful, to be admired, from an aesthetic perspective. The body of the suit, replacing Vader's normal black leather, was a silvery synthetic that she didn't even have a name for. It was studded with sapphires, as was his helmet piece. The only pieces not included were the pieces that couldn't be replaced; those directly tied into his breathing equipment, including his faceplate.

Vesenj was horrified, as Leia was, but with her new dress, she and Vader would make a stunning sight. She was sure now that Dior had to have known what was being planned for Vader. It would have been nothing for her, premier fashion designer for Naboo, to have found this out. That she hadn't said anything was close to amazing, but not unrealistic. She waited, having arrived early with her brother as her escort. Only the certainty that Vader had given them of the Emperor's absence had convinced Obi-Wan to relent on this. Luke would slip out quietly and go home if the Emperor happened to show up anyway. Since declaring that Vader was to be married, he'd given his apprentice a wide berth, confining him to Coruscant, but otherwise not expending much energy on Vader, perhaps trusting that the confinement itself would be enough to make his time difficult.

But it had been, instead, transformative. Vader had complained very little, surprisingly, and seemed of all things _grateful_ that he had the time to spend with Leia. She looked up as the herald announced the entrance of her father and the countess, and they were, as promised, about the most stunning sight that she would see that night. Even having seen both Vesenj's dress, and Vader's 'outfit', seeing both together was still breathtaking. Or perhaps it was doubly so, for her, having seen the constituent parts, and now seeing the full effect.

"You'd think he would have better things to do than be the Emperor's ornament," she heard a comment from behind her.

"Perhaps, but maybe he has reasons for enduring what the Emperor puts him through."

She forced herself to turn away from the royal couple, and face the man to whom she was speaking. "You don't think he loves her do you?" he asked

She considered it for a moment, and then agreed, "No, he doesn't love her."

"What else could there be?" he asked, confused, but she could see him dismiss the very idea that Vader actually had reason to be on Coruscant other than Vesenj.

She smiled a secretive smile, hiding it behind the glass of the champagne that had been passed liberally around the party.

Vesenj separated herself from Vader as soon as it was reasonable for her to do so, and headed for Leia. Not the smartest move on her part, but she couldn't be faulted for it, either. Besides, she and Leia had reason to know one another outside of Vader. That was another transformation that Leia had seen over the past year, Vesenj turning from a mouse into a woman. A quiet woman, that couldn't be helped, it seemed, but one fully capable of standing up to Vader.

"Senator Organa," Vesenj said.

"Countess Ercarach," she replied with a small bow of courtesy. She technically outranked the Countess, so a small bow was all that was required of her, if even that, but she was also affianced to her father, making her both within and without the family, more powerful. Her father seemed oblivious to the politics of any of the situations in which he found himself. It was strange to think he'd been married to a politician and could still be this oblivious.

Friends from the Senate began to gather, and Leia prepared to fully enjoy herself.

* * *

Luke got back from the 'fresher just in time to hear the announcement of his father and Vesenj. She fulfilled her duties, speaking with a number of dignitaries, hanging tightly to his arm. If he hadn't been able to sense her discomfort through the Force, he would have said that she looked perfectly comfortable, but he was, and it made him notice other things, like how tightly she would cling to Vader. Vader was something to her that he was sure his father never expected to be to anyone again. He was safe. The men the Emperor kept around him, and indeed, even some of those in the Senate, were lecherous fools who would let the wrong pointer do their clicking.

He didn't understand that sort of foolishness, and he knew his father didn't either. There was no point in kriffing someone just because they were a piffer. He caught sight of Leia, just as Vesenj disengaged herself from Vader. He headed for the gaggle of young women, which now included both his sister and Vesenj.

He was admitted to the group so that he could be fawned over. By the time that he got to Leia's side, he'd heard that he was extremely attractive four times, at least. He tried his best not to let it get to him. He had left the details to Vesenj, Leia and Pooja as to what he was going to be wearing, and he almost regretted it. The dark blue uniformesque outfit hadn't been as bad as he would have thought it would when he first saw it. Like the actual uniform he'd worn while they went to Naboo, he found it to be comfortable, once he accepted that it was going to restrict his movements. Having grown up on Tatooine with clothes that were meant for moving in, he didn't like it, but he didn't have to worry about it very much. He had to endure this, but it was at least going to be somewhat fun. He'd learned to dance from the three women—Obi-Wan had not been any help.

It was almost time to go home; they had been at the capital for several weeks, and it was pushing their luck to continue to do so. He didn't like the idea; he wanted to stay within reach of his sister. He also wanted to be near his father. He felt like it was good for him to be around. There were moments that he felt like he was actually reaching through all the barriers that Vader had put up around the core that was Anakin. Until the day he met Leia, he'd dreamed that his father would come and rescue him, that he was a pilot, and they could go have adventures together. His uncle had tried to shake the notion from him, but all that had done was suppress it so that Luke no longer spoke of his dreams. Dreams of flying, battles, the pure joy of commanding a machine to do his bidding and the machine complying, being so in tune with the vehicle he flew that it was like an extension of himself.

The hard reality hadn't quashed that notion, but rather it had confirmed it. Luke had learned to fly the way he had dreamed he could. Vehicles were easiest for him to understand, through the Force, and he understood why his father had been such a good pilot at such an early age.

The dancing was about to begin, and he was a bit nervous. Even with the lessons that the three girls had been giving him, he didn't feel had adequately prepared him for the dancing that he was going to be doing, but they had assured him that he would do fine. He wasn't really worried about having to dance with strangers; he was Leia's escort and therefore if there was any unwanted female attention, he could summon her and she would rescue him.

Not that he wouldn't be slightly embarrassed by having to be rescued by his sister. But that she would be there helped him feel not quite as lost. He felt her hand on his back. Her touch was different from anyone else's because there was an entire additional layer to their interactions that there wasn't with anyone else. When she touched him physically, she also touched him through the Force. It wasn't precisely intentional, at least, he didn't think it was. It just was the way things happened with them. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her. "Ready?" she asked him.

"As much as I will ever be," he told her, and then let her lead him out on the dance floor.

* * *

Palpatine drummed his fingers on the edge of the arm of his throne. The pressures he had been placing on his apprentice were not evoking the proper response, and he was beginning to worry. Vader had been slipping away from the dark side again, and humiliations he'd been heaping upon him had had the opposite of their intended effect.

He had been trying to break Vader of the last trappings of his Jedi teachings for years, and every time he tried, the _problem_ kept getting worse. He had insisted that Vader marry the Countess, directly grinding sand into the wounds that were still on his heart because of what he'd done to become a Sith. It had angered Vader, and while that was fine, if it had the intended results, it hadn't. Submission was the result. Pick a wedding date. Submission. Restriction to Coruscant. Submission. Hire outrageous wedding planners. Submission. Refusal to teach him anything. Submission. Wear ridiculous things just because. Submission. Had he driven the will to fight for what he wanted, what he needed, completely from his Apprentice?

Though Vader still held great sway within the dark side, though his grasp on it was growing steadily less. That worried him. He was increasingly distant from him, which was less worrisome, more understandable. He was pushing Vader away for a reason. Vader needed to be forced to let go of the last string that had been tied on him as a Jedi. He needed to be bereft of any loyalties. Only then would he be free to be the Sith Palpatine could see inside him.

That day would, of course, probably come with Palpatine's death. He'd made provisions for that day, but he looked forward to the day he died at his apprentice's hand with neither fear nor joy. Vader's recent behavior was irritating like a grain of sand under his skin—and as inexplicable. Perhaps this was the beginning of his plotting to take Palpatine's place as the Master Sith. Perhaps.

He had permitted the idea that Vader and the Countess were being "old fashioned" and waiting until the wedding night to consummate their relationship. He didn't expect that she would live as long as she had, but that was a thought for another day. Vader wasn't interested. There had only been one woman in the entire galaxy who had ever interested Vader that way and she had been dead for nineteen years. The delicious news that he had been dallying around with a young Senator, an irritating little snip like her father, hadn't elicited a proper response from him. Or from the Countess. The Countess's response had been limited to a short comment that she didn't believe the rumors, and when he had confronted his apprentice, the dumbfounded confusion had been convincing enough. Vader had never watched what he called "trash," but Palpatine had found nuggets of truth from many such sources, and found them to be a useful monitoring tool to ensure that he knew what was going on with the rest of the galaxy. By no means was it his only tool, but it was one.

He would demand proof that there really was something going on with the Countess once they were married. If she proved fertile, which he hoped, the offspring could replace the father, since he'd proven so faulty to begin with. He did understand the machinations behind her father asking to have her wed to Vader, and they amused him, so he'd allowed them.

Now he questioned whether that had been a good idea. Something was wrong with his apprentice, something that he might not be able to correct. But it might work out for the best. The child that would be produced from a union of Vader and the Countess could be the answer he was seeking all along. He'd seen the child, startlingly clear, blonde, though the eyes were the Countess's pale aqua color, in visions that he'd been having recently. The child would shape the future of the galaxy; his father's legacy. That much he knew for certain. Those words had come with the visions of the child: _his father's legacy._

He wasn't absolutely certain of the child's parentage, but the jawline was the same one that had graced the face of his apprentice when he'd been younger and had occasion to show his face around, the same unruly blonde hair, the same intensity. He had studied holos that had been made of the parade for the celebration of Naboo's freedom, thirty-some-odd years previous, and he had come to the conclusion that the child he was seeing in his visions was Vader's by way of the Countess. A child as distinct as this would almost certainly have been conceived, though considering how closely tied to the Force Vader had been, it was possible that the child was a long way off. He didn't know, and that bothered him as well.

A Moff from a system unimportant enough for Palpatine not to take the effort to remember the name of the system or the Moff walked into his throne room while he was contemplating the state of affairs for the Sith. Palpatine sat up a bit straighter. "Pardon the intrusion, my Lord," he said with a bow.

"Go on," Palpatine said, no emotion betrayed on his face.

"My Lord, riots on the planet have been quelled. We are hoping to keep the troops you lent us until order is completely restored."

_Ah, yes. That was what I did with the 501__st__. _"You may. Please report back when you are certain that the problems are in hand," he said and gestured dismissal to the Moff, who bowed and left.

* * *

Vader knew that he was soon going to have to say goodbye to his son, which he regretted terribly, and to his former Master, to which he didn't yet know how he felt. He and Vesenj were over at Leia's apartment again, and they were discussing something he would have thought nearly impossible even a year before, the demise of the Empire.

"You aren't ready for a confrontation with the Emperor."

"I agree with Anakin on this, Leia. Master Yoda fought Palpatine, even knowing what he was, and survived, but if he could not defeat Palpatine twenty years ago, having nine hundred years of experience to draw on, how do you expect to do so with only two years between the two of you?"

Leia frowned, the logic defeating her for a moment. "Perhaps it is time to ask him for his opinion. He is a Jedi Master, he can help us."

"If he were still alive," Vader said, "Which I doubt, he would not be inclined to help us. He has never liked me."

"He never liked your penchant for reckless behavior and your disregard for the rules," Obi-Wan countered, "I happen to know he actually liked you, and is still very much alive."

"Perfect. He can come here and tell us what to do, since he is still the Grand Master of the Jedi Order."

"Now, now, Anakin, there is no need for sarcasm. There really is no Order any more, and Master Yoda has no use for such titles where he is."

"Which is?"

"Somewhere that I know how to get to. Confirming that he is alive is showing a good deal of faith in you, Anakin."

Vader frowned. "Leia especially needs more intensive training than she can get from me, and neither she nor I have the time to devote to such, at least not while I'm away from the Fleet."

"Well, what would get you back to the Fleet?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Vader said, contemplating for the first time in a while how to get around the Emperor's ordered confinement to Coruscant. "The Emperor confined me to the planet until the wedding takes place."

Obi-Wan scratched his beard. "Did you argue against it?"

Vader thought back to that time a year previous. "No, I had just learned of Leia, and my emotions were a tumultuous mess. I was too busy trying to keep thoughts of her from leaking to spare any energy to fighting off Palpatine's requests."

"So, by the time your emotions were back under control, you had fallen into a routine," the Countess spoke up finally. "You do like your routines, Lord Vader," she continued when he looked at her.

"And it made you happy," Leia added. "Happier than you've been in a long while. I understand why you would want to continue being on Coruscant. I am here."

"The Emperor has been trying to prod you out of your comfort zone, has he not?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I suppose that would be one way of looking at it. I don't suppose I care that much."

"Well, that's probably the opposite reaction he's wanting out of you. You are, after all, supposed to be a Sith."

Vader concentrated in thought for a while. "I don't know what I am supposed to be any more. I do not want my children to follow my path."

"Why is that?" Obi-Wan asked, wanting fully articulated clarification, which was not precisely the same thing as being confused, and Vader could appreciate the difference.

"I was a Jedi, and that brought me many things that made me happy, including my children. I would not deny them the right to pursue the life of a Jedi, if they so chose. But turning to the Sith was my biggest mistake and cost me many, many things which I regret losing, and did not get me the one thing that I was promised in the beginning."

"What was it, Anakin? What made you turn?"

"This is not a story you will enjoy hearing, old man."

"I have lived with the heartache of not knowing why for so many years it will be a relief, no matter the reason."

"It was her," he said, and since this story was only for Obi-Wan's understanding, he didn't elaborate further. Obi-Wan knew who he was talking about.

"Her who?" the Countess asked.

"Our mother," Luke answered.

"Yes, you are correct, Luke. Very good," Vader praised the boy, and continued with his story. "I had dreams that she would die, that I would lose her and I couldn't stand it, not after I watched…" tears threatened in eyes that barely functioned any longer.

"And Palpatine promised you that he could save her, or that he could give you the power to save her." Vader nodded shortly, and Obi-Wan sat back in his seat with a sigh. "Did you ever think that I could have understood or helped in any way, or had the wedge the Sith had driven between us gotten in too far by that point?"

"She thought you might be able to help me, but I didn't want to be forced into leaving the Order. I didn't realize until it was too late and she was gone what I had done, what my life was going to be like without her. I hated myself for what I had done to her, what I thought I did to Luke and Leia," he paused, and after wrestling with the emotions bombarding him both from inside and out, he continued, "I used that hatred as my fuel for further descent into the dark side. It was always constant, always readily available. I had a never-ending supply of self-loathing to call upon to strengthen my connection with the Force."

Obi-Wan sat forward after he had considered for a time. "Well, just as you were unlike any Jedi we had any record of, you are also unlike any Sith that there is a record of."

"Did you study the Sith?"

"Not extensively, no, but I did look over the records of a number of them, and they all had one thing in common, from what I could tell. They were the most cold-hearted lot of unrepentant connivers this galaxy has ever seen fit to put a label to. Your story tells me something, though. You aren't like them. Whatever seems to make a Sith a Sith, you don't have it. You're still too much the seat-of-the-pants, temperamental, overly-emotional man you were as a youth."

Vader stood, pacing about as he thought about that. "I would have to not care for my children to be a Sith. I would have to want them to be Sith as well."

"I believe that is true."

"It seems that I have renounced the ways of the Sith, as I renounced the ways of the Jedi," Vader said, "But that does not resolve our immediate problems, nor does it help in determining where to go from here."

"Well, I'm afraid that you'll need to continue pretending to be a Sith for a while, at least until there are more Jedi to confront the remaining Sith and rid the galaxy of their presence."

Vader nodded. "There also remains the problem of how to get Leia away from the Senate," Vader said, "It takes up too much of her time for her to be trained effectively."

"I love my duties at the Senate." Leia protested.

"And in that you are just like your mother, which is why death was the only thing to take her from those duties." Vader said, and Obi-Wan nodded.

"Did you discuss what was going to happen after the twins were born?"

"Not in significant detail. She wanted to go back to Naboo and have them. I never asked whether she wanted to return to her Senatorial duties or not. By the time that I would have thought of it, I was consumed by the idea that there was not going to be any 'after the baby was born' for her."

"I am sorry Anakin. I wish you could have told me back then and we might have been able to prevent this whole mess."

"I almost did. If I had listened to Master Windu when he told me to stay in the Temple, Palpatine would have been dead instead of him."

"The past is the past, Anakin, we cannot change it, we can only learn what we can from it and go on into the future."

"I suppose that has been one of my major failings for a long time, being able to let go of the past."

"You must if you want to have a decent relationship with your children."

"I know," Vader said. "I want that, but I am no longer certain how to get to that end."

"One step at a time, Anakin. First we must determine how to get Leia away from the Senate believably."

"Do I have to leave the Senate?" Leia asked, interjecting herself into the conversation.

Vader looked at her, a bit startled because he'd been so focused on Obi-Wan. "Do you want to help stop the Emperor, or do you want to sit on the sidelines?"

She seemed to consider for a moment, but her hesitation was more about not wanting to lose what little influence she had in the government now as opposed to actually wanting to stay. "I want to stop him."

"Would anyone believe that you would voluntarily leave the Senate?" Obi-Wan asked her.

"I don't know. Certainly there would be some people, but my father, Pooja, some others who belong to the Alliance, they wouldn't."

"Then we are left with two choices; either you must go involuntarily, or you must believably appear to die," Obi-Wan told her. "Of these two, death is probably your better option. No one will be looking for you."

"Have you done this before?" Vader asked, fixing his stare on Obi-Wan again.

"Faked someone's death?" Obi-Wan questioned, and at Vader's short nod, he continued, "Well, the twins, but I am not sure that actually counts. Bail did most of the work on that."

"And he knows that I know about Vader being my real father. It would be suspicious to him, I think if anything happened and Father were involved."

"But if we did it correctly, it could possibly solve all, or at least most of your problems." Obi-Wan said.

"So, what is your plan?" Vader asked, directing his question at Obi-Wan.


	11. Fallout

**AN: Ok, so this is going to be a weird kind of chapter. No Main Character POV's. But I think it's what I need to do to explain the impact of "The Plan."...or is it?  
**

* * *

Mon Mothma was almost relieved when Leia Organa rather suddenly started funneling intelligence that could only have come from Darth Vader's security access into the Alliance. Bail Organa, however, was less than pleased. "She's been refusing to use her connection with him to get this kind of information for a year. Why now?"

"Maybe she feels that he has given her enough trust that she can do this safely. Maybe he's given her this information. I don't begin to understand the dynamics of the relationship between Darth Vader and Princess Leia."

"Have you seen them interact?" Bail asked, and she knew that his reluctance to accept her wanting a relationship with Vader was putting a strain on Bail's relationship with her.

"From a distance. He has offices at the Senate, and she will go to him to get approval for things she wants done."

"She never says anything about it to me."

"She doesn't interact with him the way she does you, Bail. She loves you and you love her back, but I think she wants to understand him. It's only natural, Bail, he's her father."

"Yes, biologically," Bail started.

"Don't start with the 'buts' here, Bail, she's perfectly able to see the dangers he may pose for herself. She's reckless, but not blind. And she loves you. You raised her and anything she has with him won't take that away from you."

"So, what are we going to do with this information?" Bail asked, focusing on what he could do something about.

"We have complete information on three locations, good targets for the Alliance. We are going to raid them then destroy them."

"I haven't even seen the list."

She handed him a datapad. "There is one of those secret build sites on there, the ones that we can never find, but we know that they are out there. Completely unguarded, and they are building some new class of Super Star Destroyers there. Second on the list is a dry dock that's fully berthed, and there won't be ships leaving for at least a month. Again, secret location, completely undefended. And full schematics for an Ordnance factory that takes half a planet, and its location."

"Very nice work. Perhaps it took the entire year to find locations as nice as these."

"I don't know. All I know is this information will be put to good use. We are putting teams together now to hit these locations."

"She Did she get us anything else?"

"Yes. You know that secret project that we've been trying to get the schematics for?"

"Yes, I thought we were about to send operatives into Toprawa, or somewhere."

"We were, but the Princess has made that unnecessary," she said, and pressed a button which lit a holographic image of a round device. "The Emperor's new toy, and, from what I gathered that the technicians were saying, mere weeks from completion. She didn't give us a location, but I think that may be the next thing we receive from her end."

"Very good," Bail agreed. "Very good indeed."

* * *

* * *

* * *

Garven Dreis looked over Red Squadron as they put together this mission to take out a ship yard. The supply boon alone would worth it. Unfortunately there wasn't time to confirm it through the intelligence network due to six of the Super Star Destroyers being built there were due to leave for shake down cruises inside of a month. There was a window of opportunity that the yard would be virtually defenseless and loaded down with supplies. Everything from food to ordinance. Just getting a tenth of a percent of the supplies meant for one of those monster ships would ease the Alliances supply shortages to almost nonexistent for several months at least.

The information had come from a "reliable source." That was all he'd been told. There were other bits of information, probably from the same source, being acted on by other teams, Blue and Gold Squadron were being sent on different missions.

"Ready, Boss?" Darklighter asked, and he nodded.

"As ever," he said, and moved over to his X-Wing, climbing up into it. "Let's get this going," he called out, and the pilots stopped their conversations and moved to their ships as well.

Once they were in space and headed away from Yavin's gravity well, Dreis called out over the radio, "Red Squad, sound off."

He listened as all twelve X-Wing pilots checked in, then called out, "Booty Leader, is Booty Force ready for our shopping trip?"

"Affirmative, Red Leader. Booty Force is ready to go shopping," Booty Leader responded.

"Excellent, see you at the rendezvous," Dreis responded, then switching back to the Reds he said, "Red Squad you are go for lightspeed."

All of the ships accelerated and the stars streaked in Dreis' canopy, he felt the familiar lurch in his stomach of the transition to hyperspace as the psychedelic tunnel of hyperspace replaced the starfield.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Grand Moff Trachta was certain that if he were a lesser man, a more dispensable man, he would fear for his life in this situation. As it was, he could impassively wait out the storm until orders were given, and then he could find the missing pieces and put the puzzle together.

"How did this happen?" The Emperor demanded, "I want to know where those Rebels got the information that they did. Two of the locations that they hit are only on the highest clearance network, one that they have never been able to hack into."

"Just because they never have, does not mean that they never will," he told the Emperor calmly. "I will have the best information teams available scour the firewalls in that system to see if we have a leak."

The Emperor was in a rage, venting his frustration on Trachta. He yelled and swung his hands wildly, enough that it should have scared him. "And if there is not a leak? What then? There are only twenty or so people with access to that network. None of them would be so careless as to leave their pass code just laying around, knowing how defenseless most of the systems listed there are, so the person who did this must be a Rebel sympathizer. And they will know the pain of their betrayal, I will see to it personally."

"Yes, my Lord," he agreed. He knew who it _hadn't_ been, anyone in his group, a band dedicated to the Empire, but leery of the Sith's role in it.

"Proceed with your investigations. Report back when you are finished."

"Yes, my Lord," he bowed and left, heading for the nearest Imperial informations lab.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Bail watched the holonet report with abject horror making all of his senses sharpen and tingle. "It was reported today that Darth Vader found his fiancée was leaking information to the Rebel Alliance. He went into a rage and killed her on the spot, stabbing her through the chest with his lightsaber," the reporter said as they showed footage of the event. It looked like the building internal security footage. After the stabbing, he watched as Vader scooped up her body, cradled it against him and left. It struck him as a little odd, but the reporter was continuing, "Her contact was reported to be Leia Organa, a prominent young Senator from Alderaan. He engaged her in a lightsaber duel, though we have no idea where she would have gotten such a device, as they are severely restricted, and their possession is usually sufficient for a death sentence."

He sat down, horrified that they might actually be so crass as to show his daughter's death on the Holonet. The scene opened from a wide shot, far off, far enough at least that there was no sound recorded. It was all happening on the roof of a high building. A part of his mind wondered if he could get lip readers to tell him what Leia was saying, the rest of his mind was too wrapped up in the scene before him to care.

There were angry words, a conversation, since there were pauses in what Leia said. He focused on her, trying not to think about what might be coming. He saw much gesticulating on both sides, and he could almost see the rage pouring off both of the, he could even understand the sense of betrayal that each of them might feel for the other. He just prayed to the Force that Leia and Obi-Wan hadn't been foolish enough to allow Vader anywhere near Luke.

It happened in a moment, Vader brought his lightsaber out, but before he could deliver a killing strike, putting every bit of strength he had into an overhead strike, Leia brought her own blade up. The blade glowed a clear, vibrant blue even through the holorecording. Color had improved in the last twenty years but it was far from perfect. She blocked Vader's strike, and that was the cause for more words. She was less visibly angry now, more in control. More like the Jedi Knight her father had been, though his emotions had never been well-controlled. Vader tested his blade against hers, swatting at it almost carelessly, perhaps testing how firmly she held her grip.

He forced her back, a series of short attacks, strikes from the outside. He had seen enough footage of Master Kenobi during the war to know that her style was mimicking his. She held herself in a crouch, keeping a low center of gravity, allowing him to press her back rather than standing her ground. She had plenty of it to give, after all, since she was angling to keep herself going in a circle. She said something to him as they paused for a moment, probably in response to something he'd said, then Vader attacked again. He swung with heavy blows, but Leia kept her guard up and he didn't get a strike through. Bail's heart swelled with pride that she had both the bearing and strength of a Jedi. That she carried the lightsaber of a Jedi, though he had no idea where she might have gotten one. Perhaps Obi-Wan had given it to her, though she made no mention of the old Jedi to him, he knew that she kept in contact. She had changed over the last year, changed dramatically. He was just starting to see that, now that she was probably dead. The few times she had been home instead of at the Senate in the last year, on Tatooine, Naboo, or some mission of mercy, she had been quieter, more contemplative. She had been initally angry with him about seeing Obi-Wan, but after her trip to Tatooine, she had said nothing when she had returned to pack. Her heritage hadn't been a subject that he'd wanted to broach with her, and she had not been inclined to speak of it. But she had always worn the necklace. Just as her mother had, she kept the token as a symbol of Anakin's love.

The love that was now going to end up killing her. There was enough detail that he could see the black cord against her neck and he knew that she still wore that necklace. It was often the only jewelry she wore. He didn't know if it meant anything, but it made him angry. Angry that Vader could kill her, knowing everything that she was. "Damn you," he said to the holograph of Vader. "Damn you straight to hell."

He went back to watching in silence, praying that she survived. It was beginning to look as though she would have a chance. He had heard from Master Kenobi about what had happened on Mustafar. How badly damaged Vader had been, excruciating detail as to what had landed him in the suit that was as much to protect him and keep him alive as it was to intimidate. He had never intimidated Leia, not really. Even when she had been much younger, seeing Vader on the Holonet would evoke curiosity in her rather than the terror he'd seen in other children.

Bail watched as Vader took more sweeping slashes at his daughter. She backed off from the swings, letting the red blade pass harmlessly in front of her. He came at her from the center then, pushing her to the corner of the building. There was a pause, a lowering of Vader's lightsaber. She still held hers in a defensive guard, close to her body. The pause lingered for an eternity, then she spoke. Whatever she said was short, and apparently angered Vader. He threw his left hand up, fingers splayed out, and she flew back away from him, off the edge of the building. The camera tracked her as she fell, and her lightsaber winked out. She fell head first for what looked like a hundred meters, then her slight figure was lost among the buildings.

The reporter reappeared. "Her death has been confirmed by the Empire, as some of her remains have surfaced."

"In other news, with the absence of a fiancée to keep him tied to Coruscant, Vader has declared that he will rejoin his fleet in hunting down the Rebel Alliance."

Bail switched the Holonet off, buried his face in his hands, and cried.

* * *

* * *

* * *

The Emperor had Vader brought into his throne room, along with a coroner and the leg that had been found after his duel with the young traitor.

"Lord Vader, I want to know why this happened."

"I discovered some time ago that Leia Organa was my daughter," he revealed. "That she had not, in fact, died with her mother as I had been led to believe. I found that she was as strong with the Force as I had been, though untrained, and I wished to groom her to take her rightful place as a Sith, at my side."

"Why did you not inform me of her existence?"

"I was planning to overthrow your rule and install her as my apprentice.I was planning your death. Do you really expect that I would say something about it?"

"No. Continue."

"She was learning the ways of the Sith, and I fear I may have taught her too well in some areas and not well enough in others. She betrayed me and I allowed it. I will not allow the Rebellion to capitalize on my mistakes."

"She is dead."

"She is," he said, and Palpatine turned his attention to the coroner.

"Tell me what you have found in your examination of this specimen. "I found it to be genetically identical to the sample provided and identified as Leia Organa. I also determined that the genetics do indicate a strong likelihood for paternity in Lord Vader's case. The test you ordered me to perform, for midi-chlorians, I believe you called them, was off the scale that you provided."

"More confirmation that she was indeed stolen from you, Lord Vader. Continue," he prompted the coroner.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Having conclusively determined that this did belong to Leia Organa, I examined the wounds, and have found that the leg was torn from the body post-mortem. We picked it up from a protrusion on one of the buildings in the path of her fall, and the force that this was ripped off her body with is consistent with her falling at terminal velocity. We have yet to find the remainder of her body, but I feel confident in saying that she is dead."

"Very well, you are dismissed."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," he said, leaving the room, and leaving the leg behind.

"So, how do you feel about your daughter's death?" Palpatine asked, reaching out with the Force, determining every emotion that Vader was projecting.

"She betrayed me. I am ready prepared to go find the rest of the Rebellion and strangle them one by one," he said, and there was much anticipation in his thoughts. The one thing that the Emperor thought he would find, and didn't was remorse.

"Excellent," he said, "You may return to your fleet, Lord Vader, and be prepared to meet me in the Horuz System in three weeks. I want you to go there first and speed up the construction on the Death Star. I want it complete by the time I arrive."

"It will be done, my Master," he said, "I would ask if I could interrogate the Countess's mother to see if she has any knowledge of her daughter's leanings towards rebellion."

"Of course," Palpatine said, waving off further consideration of the topic.

"Thank you, my Master," he said with a bow, and he exited the room, leaving the Emperor alone.

"Excellent, excellent, Lord Vader. I have finally broken you of your last clinging grasp on loyalty," he said to the empty darkness, then he began to laugh.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Earl Merick Ercarach had finished his work for the day, and when he turned the holonet on. First was a brief report that earlier in the day, Vader had killed his fiancée and a Senator suspected of treason, turning classified information over to the Rebel Alliance, and that Vader had gone and gotten Vesenj's mother from custody, and had 'questioned' her to death.

"No, no, no, no no no nonononononononooooo," he collapsed, sobbing, in front of the broadcast, where his staff found him an hour later.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Han Solo flew away from Coruscant with only himself and Chewie on board. Chewie growled something at him. "Yeah, I don't like it either. That kid is getting involved in something that he shouldn't be."

Chewie's answer was less than satisfactory. "Well, I can't exactly kidnap him, can I?"

The argument Chewie gave him made him wonder. Could he kidnap the kid to keep him safe? It was kind of a moot point now, because he had no idea where he was or where the old fossil had gotten off to, either. He slammed a fist on the armrest of his seat. "I hate this," he told Chewie. "I hate caring about people." Chewie growled sympathetically.


End file.
